All Church Retreat Starts:  FRI, SEP 18 @ 7PM

Why doesn’t anybody want to go to church anymore?

I would like to invite you to a very special weekend of learning and strategic planning. On the weekend of September 18-20, I will be leading a congregational retreat here on campus that will be addressing the struggles of the Church today in the face of a culture that doesn’t seem to care very much about it anymore.

On Friday night we will be screening a documentary film titled, "When God Left The Building." Watching images of church furnishings and buildings being auctioned off is tough to see but it is happening across the country at an alarming rate. The purpose of our time together will be to get us all on the same page, realizing that although Jesus promised the gates of hell will never prevail against the Church, capital “C”, individual congregations will be planted, flourish for a time, and then, sometimes almost imperceptibly, begin to wither.

Thom Rainer, pastor, church consultant, and CEO of Lifeway Christian Resources, in his important little book, Autopsy of a Deceased Church, has found that that only about ten percent of churches today are healthy. Forty percent are showing symptoms of sickness, another forty percent are very sick, and the last ten percent are actually dying, the end is only a matter of time.
The first 50 families who sign up to attend our weekend event will receive a copy of this book FREE to read before the retreat begins.

We will also be looking at why the largest generation of young adults to ever come along, the Millennials, those born between 1980 and 2000, are deserting the church in droves. This generation and their young families are the future of the church, the future of every congregation that doesn’t want to find itself on the autopsy table in ten years. The answers may surprise you.

Dr. Ted Baehr, author and well-known Christian speaker, will be with us to talk about upholding Christian values in a mass media world. Along with Pat Boone, Dr. Baehr co-authored the book, The Culture-Wise Family. He knows just about everything there is to know about the movie industry. He is the founder of Movieguide, a Christian values based non-profit dedicated to influencing current and future filmmakers. His website, movieguide.org, is great place to “know before you go.” It features film reviews, interviews and news about what’s going on in the film industry today.

Finally, armed with facts and figures and heads filled with knowledge, we will put those heads together on Sunday afternoon to take an honest look at where Peace is at and where we might go. What we look like now and what we might want to look like ten or twenty years from now.

I would like to see at least one hundred Peace people, only about half an average Sunday morning attendance, make the commitment to show up for the whole weekend. It will be interesting, informative and fun. It has been a while since we have done any strategic planning. We are overdue
and this is an essential process to continued growth. That is why it is so important that you try to make the time to come and participate. If we are not on the same page about where we are at, it will be tough to ever be on the same page about where we need to go.
We all lead busy lives. But now and then an opportunity to make a difference comes along and when that happens you want to be a part of it. So please plan to join me the weekend of September 18th-20th as we make executable plans to be around at least another 50 years, sharing God’s good news, being a light in the darkness of a world that needs a little light so badly. The weekend is open to all Peace members and friends. Invite anyone you know who might be interested. And please, pre-register here or when you see the sign-up sheet go up, so we can get you a book and plan food & refreshments.

See you then!

Pastor Rob