Is JB Chapman Rolling Over in His Grave?

The 2024 Eastern Michigan District Assembly Journal had been distributed. The reports aren’t great. 

30% of churches on the district reported no conversions this year. Zero. 
46% of the churches reported no baptisms. Zippo. 
50% reported no New Nazarenes. Nadda.

If a body had no pulse (no conversions); no blood pressure (no baptisms); and no brain activity (no new Nazarenes), we would conclude that the body is dead or at least dying. 

Hey Lenexa, call hospice. The Church of the Nazarene is in trouble. 
Call the weed control company, the grassroots of the Church of the Nazarene are in the briar patch.
Call the WWE scriptwriters, the Church is on its back, and the referee is about to slap the mat for a third time.

Pick any “We’re-in-trouble” metaphor and that is us.

At least our cemetery has company, the Southern Baptists just reported that 43% of their churches reported no baptisms. You can read it here. Whoopie, we are not alone.

Blame the culture. Blame past church abuse. Blame politics. Blame Covid. Blame whatever you want, the truth of the matter is that churches (no matter the brand) in America are not fulfilling the Great Commission (see Matthew 28:19-20).  We aren’t making disciples (30% no conversions); we aren’t baptizing (46% no baptisms); we aren’t teaching (50% no new Nazarenes). 

So what are we doing? Why do we exist if we aren’t fulfilling what Jesus called us to do? 

In 1946, JB Chapman was disheartened by the state of the Church of the Nazarene and published a little booklet titled, “All out for Souls.” You can read it here.  In it he wrote: 

“Brethren, I was born in the fire, and I cannot endure the smoke. I am a child of the bright daylight, and mists and fogs and depressing gloom are not to my liking. I want to go all out for souls… 
“I want a revival that, like a summer shower, will purify the atmosphere of our churches everywhere, and which will awake the dormant forces of our people young and old. I want something so general and so divine that it will be uncontrollable. I want something that will reemphasize old-time moral and spiritual conditions…
“Something that will make this namby-pamby, soft-handed, compromising, cringing sort of holiness as obsolete as Phariseeism was on the Day of Pentecost.” 

If JB Chapman was saying that in 1946, what would he say if he were looking over the sorry state of many of today’s churches?  Once again we must “go all out for souls!” Once more we need to be revived. If not now, then when?  We can’t look at the reality and be unmoved. We must do something. Anything. It takes going all out for souls once more.  

And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
So I answered, “O Lord God, You know.”
Again He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord God to these bones: “Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. Ezekiel 37:3-5