Then I think beyond that every church needs a group of people – and this is not everybody; I really believe people are called, it’s a gifting — who will commit to pray for the pastor and staff. No pastor should walk out into a congregation without having the hands of the elders laid on him and prayed for. Without the anointing of God we’re like gun shells in a gun without any gunpowder.

And I think every church needs to let their pastor dream. I think so many pastors are afraid to think outside the box. They find themselves so pigeon holed by a power group of deacons or elders who are just satisfied with the status quo. Ever pastor needs to dream the impossible dream. And because the church is changing so much, congregations need to insist that their pastors are continually learning, studying, improving themselves, becoming conversant about the generational issues and the issues of how to do church better and how to do it more effectively.

Then I think the church has got to really look at itself very close. The Bible says let a man examine himself. Well, I say let a church examine itself. Contention and bitterness and a sense of malice is destroying church after church after church. I read the other day that 53% of churches in America have allowed themselves to become so contentious that it has resulted in a lessening effect in the community and a decreasing number of attenders. In fact the Associated Press did a survey several years ago asking people who don’t go to church why they don’t go to church anymore. Of course, the first reason was church wasn’t relevant. In the top five was there is so much contention in the church that I feel uncomfortable there.

Preaching: How has the pastorate changed over the years? You were in the pastorate for a number of years and now you work with pastors. How has it changed?

London: I was a pastor for 31 years. I think that the church has changed in that there used to be a very distinct difference between a Baptist church, a Methodist church, a Nazarene church, a Presbyterian church, an Evangelical Free church. There was a doctrinal or theological difference that you were aware of. You could go into just about any church (of that denomination) across the country and there would be a sense of sameness about it. Now I’m not sure most churches know who they are; their theology has become kind of a blend of many other theologies. Where once there was a time where denominational leaders had a voice, today there is a handful of popular pastors or professional ministers that dictate the direction of the church. I think that’s one way we’ve really changed.

I think another way it’s changed is that we’ve lost the urgency for the lost. I don’t thing we’re driven by the reality of the number of unsaved people that live around us. Evangelism is basically dead in much of the church. I think another thing that’s happened is that we’ve developed a kind of feel-good mentality. Make me feel good. I know there’s no condemnation in Jesus but I don’t want to be convicted. I’ll get angry at you if you make me feel convicted. I think now that we’ve moved into megachurch world where it’s the Wal-Mart mentality — one-stop shopping. We’re closing so many small churches every week but the truth of the matter is that the mega churches – the 850 or so megachurches with 2,000 and above — really only service about 3 million people on Sunday out of the 300 million people in the United States.