Leaving the Place Called Stuck

Launching into Your New Season

Dr. April Griseta

• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781685702120
• eBook ISBN: 9781685702137
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Are you stuck in your life journey and want to move forward? Do you want to learn why you are stuck and how to get out?

Come and explore the following:

The whys of procrastination

The secondary gains for staying in stuck

The forces of darkness thwarting your destiny

The spiritual paralysis binding you

The ungodly mindsets entrapping you

Leaving the Place Called Stuck is a book to awaken the bride of Christ out of her slumber. In this new awakening, she will be propelled into her God-given destiny.

Chapter 3

The Church Stuck

From whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

—Eph. 4:16 (NKJV)

If any member of the body is stuck, we are all stuck. Many have conformed to the ways of this world, having loved this present world. Some have become desensitized to sin, and some have a lackadaisical attitude toward service. I believe the church at large has taken a back seat with regard to opposing the gross darkness that has covered the earth.

Many factors have changed the landscape of the American church, especially over the last half-century. Media has helped promote an ungodly worldview and has dictated to the culture what the expected norm is. Moral decay has been the result. The church has not been a powerful influence in society, and thorns and briers are the results.

The face of the American church has undergone plastic surgery; unfortunately, it is not looking better. Its worldly nips and tucks are far from the admonition “not to conform to this world.” Cultural relevance has replaced reverence in many churches. Holiness has become a byword to many a local assembly.

Babylon (today’s culture) has indeed invaded Jerusalem (the church), and many of God’s people have welcomed the trespass. The church has given way and/or yielded to a very ungodly paradigm shift. Instead of the church bringing light to the world, the world has now, supposedly, enlightened the church. A siren call has gone out and has been largely successful in bringing the church under the current zeitgeist (spirit of the age).

The Spirit of the Age

The Spirit of the Age is marked by secular humanism. James Emery White (author of The Church in an Age of Crisis) refers to a celebration of the humanities also known as humanism. He states, “Humanism became destructive when it was ripped from its Christian mooring and became a secular humanism.”13 In other words, studying humans apart from God made humanism destructive. “Instead of studying humans in light of the Creator, there was turn to Protagoras idea that man is the measure of all things.”14 Hence, the spirit of the age is marked by individualism.

The Spirit of the Age exalts self and erases God. Barry Kosmin (coresearcher of the American Religious Identification Survey) stated Americans are “not thinking about religion and rejecting it; they’re not thinking about it at all.”15 Dr. David Jeremiah shared how he believes that the Bible is becoming of lessor importance and even being spoken evil of. Author White referenced a comment made by Dr. Jeremiah:

Dr. Jeremiah comments: “Something has happened in America that once seemed unthinkable to me. When I was a boy growing up and even a young man in school, biblical principles had a strong influence in society. There was pervasive respect for the Bible and biblical principles were evident in the shape of the culture and the mores of the people. It never occurred to me that the Bible could be marginalized and even vilified publicly as is today.”16

Less than fifty years ago, the Bible was esteemed. What happened between then and now? Or maybe a better question is, What didn’t happen? What were the influences that brought a change in the mindset of the people? I believe that media and the devil dictate to the culture how to think and behave. The educational system and government are facilitators in Satan’s hands. With most of the world being under the sway of the wicked one, people follow. Those blind are leading the blind, and the church has become dull of heart.

Media Influence on Culture and Church

There have always been attacks against Christianity; however, with the technological world we currently live in, the masses are being reached at a phenomenal level. Futurist Ray Kurzweil states,

An analysis of history of technology shows that the technological change is exponential. So, we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century—It will be more like 20000 years of progress at today’s rate.17

The web 2.0 revolution has peddled the promise of bringing more truth to more people—more depth of information, more global perspective, more unbiased opinion from dispassionate observers. But this is all a smokescreen. The chilling reality in this brave new digital epoch is the blurring, obfuscation and even disappearance of truth.18

Media dictates what we are to look like and what we are to believe. It tells us what’s in and what’s not, what’s hot and what’s not.

They (the media) are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered.19

For example, Models wearing size zero have become what is expected of women in the culture.

With the help of for-profit media upheld by advertisers who make billions off unattainable beauty ideal, many of us have come to believe a very distorted picture of what it means to look like (or weigh like or fit into clothes like) a normal woman.”20

Stuck in self, we do remain.

TV Sets New Norm

A decay of morality will keep the kingdom of God from moving forward. Moving further from truth gives the devil a foothold. As our children view ungodliness and accept it as a norm, biblical values become erased from the culture and generations to follow.

One criticism often leveled against the media is that they are contributing to the decay of morality. Indeed, a recent national poll reported that 70 percent of Americans are very or somewhat worried that popular cu...

Table of contents

• What Kind of Stuck Is It?
• In God’s Bubble Stuck
• The Church Stuck
• Spiritually Lethargic: Fruit of Stuck
• Correlation between God and Stuck
• Do You Want to Get Unstuck?
• Resistance to Leaving the Place Called Stuck
• Tweaking Perception on Stuck
• Elephants in the Room Stuck
• Findng God at the Juncture of Stuck
• I Refuse to Be Stuck in the Mud
• Stuck but Going to Give God My Best
• Stuck to Breakthrough
• Stuck to Kingdom Destiny
• The Deliverance Ministry for Stuck
• No Longer Stuck: Running with Your Assignment
• Support Group for Stuck
• Conclusion