Why people don’t live the Gospel

This post is from the defunct blog “Dying Church”

A list from Bill Easum:

1. Concern for membership rather than discipleship
2. Concern for size rather than quality
3. Sin
4. Lack of spiritual direction from pastors (especially mainline)
5. Pastors who won't tell it like it is and hold problem people accountable
6. Sin
7. Too much emphasis on current theology rather than living missiology
8. Christianity becoming a way of life rather than a life and death movement
9. Bultmann and all that crowd
10. Sin, did I mention that already?
11. Removing salvation as the primary emphasis of Christianity
12. Putting Christianity on an equal plane with all other major religions
13. Sin
14. Affluence
15. The removal of the supernatural from the mainline tradition
16. Too much reliance on the emotional among some of the side line groups
17. Development of the institutional church in place of the missional or organic church

The solution to the problem lies in the undoing of at least the above and problem much more. I know this seems simplistic, but the good news is simple. We just make it either too difficult for people to understand and thus live it, or too simple for people to believe and thus live it.