I took a trip to my hometown recently to see my Mom.  It’s a small mid-south county seat town with a rich history of producing musical people that even today impact Nashville and the whole music scene.  However, as I drove through town, I noticed it’s starting to show the signs of decline.

This decline is gradual and probably isn’t noticeable by those who have grown accustomed to it day by day.  It’s not an all out full-blown death spiral, but the decline will continue if the reason for it is left unaddressed.  The reason is obvious – the builders are dying.  Even during my short visit, my Mom attended the funeral of a good friend and neighbor down the street.  One more builder lost.

Don’t misunderstand me.  Builders aren’t contractors.  They are ordinary people who put the good of their community above their own personal gain.  We have a whole generation of them who are dying at an alarming rate.  They weathered and won World War II and then helped ”build” this nation into the greatest on earth.

What’s happening to my hometown is indicative of what’s happening all across our country.  Builders spent their lives improving everything they touched.  They sacrificed for the sake of their children saying: “I want my kids to have a better life than I’ve had.”  They invested themselves and their money into their communities and expected that same from others.  I can still hear my Dad chiding me about wanting to go to Memphis to purchase something saying: “If you spend your money out of town, before long you won’t have a town.”

Builders gave generously to community causes. They worked tirelessly to expand local libraries and local schools.  They built locally-owned businesses and dealt with locally-owned banks.  They built community hospitals and community churches.  In short, they built communities.

Now, they’re dying, and they’re not being replaced with like-minded people.  The kids they had such high hopes failed to grasp that same sense of community mindedness. That’s why my hometown is showing signs of decline.  The builders aren’t in power anymore to ensure the best for the community and their kids are doing what my generation have always done - personally reaped the benefits of the prosperity of our parents.

I don’t mean to come across sounding so cynical, but it’s true.  We’ve all seen it happen over and over.  One generation builds and the next generation rides what was built.  By the third generation, what was once a viable entity has been riden down to the point where their is little vibrancy left to pass on. 

It’s a fact that most family-owned businesses don’t make it past the second generation.  It’s well documented.  A vital ingredient is missing in the acumen of that second generation which was so prevasive with the first: SELF-SACRIFICE. 

No community can be built without it.  Everything that can be created to outlast our lifetime requires it.  The opposite of it is self-indulgence – the ultimate consumeristic mentality.  It’s the lack of self-sacrifice that will be the demise of the church in America.  While builders invested their lives in starting, serving and maintaining the witness of churches all over this country, boomers are spiritual consumers. 

My generation wants ready-made congregations that offer a host of specialty programs staffed by someone other than themselves that cater to their every need.  As a consequence, as builders pass away so do many of the churches they lovingly sacrificed to build, maintain and hoped to pass on.

Granted, not all these churches deserve to live on;  not all have a compelling reason for ministry;  not all want to reach the world they currently live in.  But certainly, not all that are dying are unworthy congregations, either.

As long as spiritual consumers are willing to drive out of their communities to attend the newest, hottest, most consumer-oriented mega-church in the city, then the spiritual climate of local communities will continue to decline just as surely as my hometown.  Mega-churches skim the cream off the top and rarely do the difficult work of penetrating deeply into the local areas from which they draw people to reach the lost in those areas.  They rarely disciple large numbers of those living in those communities into passionate, productive followers of Christ who in turn invest themselves in reaching and discipling others.

However, all is not hopeless.  There are hundreds of thousands of churches dotted all over the landscape of America in whom God has invested His life.  Many are doing an outstanding job of reaching their communities with the gospel.  And, there are a few mega-churches that are starting new churches to reach new people for Christ.

As long as those who love Jesus continue to hear His call to deny themselves, pick up their crosses and follow Him, there is hope – hope that a self-centered, self-indulgent and self-satisfied generation will wake up to realize “The Great Generation” was called that not because they had everything, but because they were willing to build everything.  There is hope that the DNA they inherited will stir passions long buried by years of prosperity and cause us boomers to invest our lives in order to give them away for the sake of others.

If that happens, there is hope for the revival of my hometown.  More importantly, there is hope for real spiritual revival in America.  I praying for that!