Focus of western culture and the church

The impact of the "me" generation is bearing its fruit ... and it isn't good.  A "significant ecclesiastical threat" in today's church in America is:  "me".  Many forms the church takes follows the function of satisfying the desires and tastes of the individual.  The results appear to be devastating to the church.  However, we can thank God that He is not caught off-guard by the shifting winds of western culture.

Read more by Dr. Horton here, on Ligonier's website.  In brief, this threat is:

...an ecclesiology based on the individual’s decision for Christ, rather than God, from eternity past, making a blueprint for the church and executing it in His Son by His Spirit. And so it’s easy if the church is just sort of created by a collection of deciders and choosers, to turn the church into a market, into a shopping mall of consumers.

We wonder why, according to one study, eighty percent of those raised in evangelical churches leave the church, they don’t join a church, they don’t even go to church by the time they are sophomores in college. Well, you have to ask the question: are they really leaving the church, did they ever belong to it? How many Sundays did they actually spend with the communion of saints in public prayer, public reading of Scripture, public preaching, partaking of the sacraments—did they ever meet with an elder or pastor? If these things are not a part of the normal experiences of young people, they’re not really connected to the church. They might be connected to their circle of friends from the youth group. They might be connected to their campus ministry support network and their campus leader, but they’re not part of a church.