Hello Folks,
Last week I was in South Lebanon, Ohio where I preached a revival for our congregation there. It went from Sunday a.m. through Wednesday night. The congregation there is a small congregation but the folks there had a desire to worship God and were very receptive to the sermons. Yet that brings a question that I would like to present to you.
Through the nights that I spent at that congregation I noticed that there no other pastors or members of other congregations attended in support even though there are a multitude of other congregations within a short distance. There could be numerous reasons for that such as a failure to communicate to the other congregations. But it seems to me that wherever I go that there is very little support from other congregations and that is even true here in Greeneville. It would appear to me that there is little, if any, practical application of unity being applied among our congregations today. Of course, I could be using the wrong measurements but there appears to be little effort to support each other in anything.
Let me give you another example of this thought. During the East Tennessee Summer Camp Meeting the largest attendance was 524 with the average nightly attendance being 334. According to the yearbook the seven congregations of Greene county have a combine average attendance of 1151 and that does not include any of the other approximately 21 congregations of the Church of God in East Tennessee.
This leads me to the question of whether we really want to be together as congregations? It appears from this that either the idea of unity is lost to us or we must find some other ways to express it. Could it be that people see these times of joint worship as nothing more than a night off from church? I realize that people are extremely busy but does that simply reveal a shift to being a society of people who want a "form of godliness" that takes place on Sunday a.m. only?
I heard a CD of Albert Mohler the other day and he said: "Wealth brings more opportunities for unfaithfulness." Is that where we are at as a nation, as a Movement, and as a congregation? You tell me.

H. Gerald Rudd