As  the church goes, so goes the nation.

Benjamin Franklin gave the reason for the necessity of the church in a free land. “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they need of masters.”

Would it be too much to say we have become corrupt and vicious? By masters, Benjamin Franklin meant people of tyranny who rule over others.

So, what must the church do? How do we deal with an increasingly secular culture?

Yesterday, I told the story of Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs. They are the newly crowned champions of the National Basketball Association.

You can read yesterday’s post about the Spurs and how they adapted to the new brand of basketball here. http://waylonbailey.com/2014/06/18/go-spurs-go-church/.

When asked how the Spurs have been able to win five league championships over fifteen years, Duncan told how the Spurs and particularly their head coach, Gregg Popovich, has adapted to changes in basketball.

If the church is the hope of the world, as Rick Warren says, we must take the wonderful message of Christ to a culture that has changed.

Gregg Popovich could have lamented the fact that basketball has changed. He could have decided that coaching wasn’t “fun anymore.” He could have done a number of things.

What he did was decide to adapt to give his team another championship run. The results are self-evident.

I want to give one important word. Gregg Popovich didn’t quit coaching basketball, he simply made subtle changes to play championship basketball. The church doesn’t need to give up; we need to make subtle changes to make a difference.

In Louisiana where I live and serve, we learned that many baptist churches were missing out on an important demographic–actually two demographics. The state was changing but the churches were not adapting to those changes. We were missing the new ethnic groups moving to the state, and we were failing to connect with the children and youth of the state.

Simply a change of emphasis–not a change of doctrine–would open the door to reach more people for Christ. We learned at our state level that hundreds of churches did not baptize a single child or youth last year. Much of our decline in church membership and baptisms could be ended by simply making the subtle change to reach children.

After all, didn’t Jesus emphasize children? What should we do?

The church must adapt. We must the see the fields white unto harvest. We must show God’s love to people who are desperate to know the love of God.

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