God’s intent for the Church has always been that it be a place where lost people get found and the broken get put back together — a place filled with “weres” who are learning to build new lives through the power of the Holy Spirit.

It’s time for surveys to tell us that churches are breaking new ground and being filled with those from broken families, broken relationships, and broken lives. But they should also tell us churches are doing all they can to break the downward cycle of family dysfunction and restore health to marriage and fatherhood. Only then can people step into the life God has for them, and only then can they be part of God’s heart for breaking new ground through the power of the Gospel.

“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes …” (Romans 1:16).

In Paul’s first letter to the church in Thessalonica, he reminded them they had “turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God …” (I Thessalonians 1:9). When he took the Gospel to the city of Ephesus, many who engaged in sorcery and pagan worship left their ways to follow Jesus (Acts 19: 19, 23-27). The survey question, “How many of you came from families that practiced sorcery and idolatry?” Would have had embarrassing results. Yet Heaven was smiling as new ground was being broken.

But the city of Corinth tops them all: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor those habitually drunk, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the Kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (I Corinthians 6:9-11). That must have been quite a congregation! New ground was being broken.

“Churches must work to restore healthy marriages and fatherhood to combat a growing decline in Christianity, according to a survey released by a faith-based group.” The article went on to detail how the decline in resident fatherhood and the collapse of marriage are likely explanations for the increase in religious non-affiliation throughout the United States.

God’s roles for males and females need to be restored. Male leadership in the home and church is clearly laid out in God’s Word but it like most of God’s commandments has been jettisoned by an unbelieving world. Fortunately, God tells us in His Word that this would be the case and the only solution is for Jesus to return and restore righteousness by ruling and reigning the nations with a rod of iron, and this He will do for 1000 years with the resurrected Saints. Jesus’ Millennial Kingdom is a transition period prior to God establishing a new Heaven and new Earth where only the righteous dwell. Whilst Satan is bound for most of the thousand years. In the end, God allows him to be released and astoundingly he is still able to raise an army of rebellious people like the sand of the sea to come against Jesus and the Saints. The rebellion is promptly put down and this earth and heaven are destroyed. A second resurrection occurs of those unbelievers who were not raised at the first resurrection and all those who died during the Millennium. Jesus White Throne judgement follows. Only then does John see a new Heaven and a new Earth and a magnificent New Jerusalem descending from Heaven onto the new Earth.