BQ: It's pretty spiritually depressing where I am if you don't have some real gumption. One of the elders in a congregation here told me, "None of the young men from boot camp ever have the follow through to assemble. They're lazy. They just don't show up."

I had to take him to task a bit on what he said. Here, the congregation hires a man with a PhD to do everything for them, because they see this man as the absolute leader, who can do all to support them and teach them as they sit back and receive...doing nothing. Yet God says, "What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, EACH ONE has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification." (1 Cor 14:26)

This attitude of needing a man to serve us as we do nothing is abominable, especially seeing as Acts 4:13 says, "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus."

We don't need to hold PhDs to accomplish the will of Christ. While the elder here bemoaned the lack of young men, the church these days is largely like a baseball team where everyone except the preacher is permanently assigned to the bench: observing, but not out there winning the game. If we're not involved, then EACH ONE of us doesn't really help out, and of course we'll fall away! Would you stick with a team that assigned you to permanent bench warming? Of course not! Let's change that and knock it out of the ballpark. Let's get involved!


Note: I'm currently in southern Mississippi and I'm 26 years of age. Since I've started assembling, many young immersed people have moved in, but I'm the only one who has started assembling, much to the dismay (which is expressed as annoyance) of the elders. 

I think of it like this: 

"Every week our team has a game where the one superstar plays and the rest of us just watch and keep the seats warm! I don't know why the young bench warmers don't bother showing up after 20 years of doing that. They must be lazy." 

I'm still baffled that we've reached this point in many assemblies, where one guy does everything. Basically a clergy/laity split, and it will continue to erode us.  It's closer to Old Testament in makeup than New, and it's entirely unproductive, destructive, and wrong.