Pastor Josh White introduced President Brian Walker of Grace Gospel Fellowship, who delivered this encouraging word to the GBC Phoenix family. If you’ve been watching the news lately and wondering what happened to the church in America — this message was for you.
The Condition of the Church
President Brian Walker began with an honest assessment of the American church in 2024 — and it was sobering. Roughly 3,000 churches close every year in the United States. That’s about 50 per week. The average American church has just 61 people in attendance. Less than half of Americans now say faith is important — the first time in U.S. history that statistic has dipped below 50%.
Churches are shrinking. Pastors are burning out. Seminaries are closing.
But Walker was quick to add: “We’re not losing battles — we’re going to win the war.” The answer isn’t panic. It’s perspective.
Be Meek
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Matthew 5:5
The first word of encouragement was meekness. Not passivity — but humility and restraint under pressure. The willingness to absorb offense rather than retaliate.
Walker pointed to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. The Jewish people of Jesus’ day were living under Roman oppression — they could be struck, sued, forced to carry a soldier’s gear a mile. And Jesus said, Don’t fight back. Turn the other cheek. Give more than they’re asking. Trust Me with the outcome.
Paul lived the same way. In 1 Corinthians 9, he wrote that he became “all things to all people” — adapting, listening, entering different cultural spaces — for the sake of the Gospel. Not to compromise, but to reach people where they were.
What if instead of getting angry when someone drives by with a bumper sticker you can’t stand, you prayed for them? What if you had the humility to listen to someone who disagrees — not to join them, but to love them well?
To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law — though I myself am not under the law — so that I might win those under the law.
1 Corinthians 9:20
Be Strong
The second word was strength — but not the kind the world means.
Walker asked a simple question: “Do you feel small?” In a culture that feels overwhelming, it’s easy to feel insignificant as a believer. But God doesn’t measure power the way we do.
Then he held up a cup of water. A single glass of water, if you could extract the energy from hydrogen atoms through nuclear fusion, would power the entire state of Arizona for two years. We haven’t figured out how to harness it yet — but God already has. That’s the God who holds all the world’s water in the hollow of His hand. That’s the God who says to you: You are not insignificant.
He draws up the drops of water, which distill in mist from the throats of the vanes of the heavens.
Job 36:27
Faith is how we access that power. Not by muscling up spiritually, but by trusting in who Jesus is and what He did — and then praying.
The Power of Prayer
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.
Romans 8:26
Walker zeroed in on prayer as the primary way believers access God’s power. Here’s the remarkable part: you don’t have to have the right words. You don’t have to be eloquent. You just have to come.
When the world feels out of control — pray. When you’re celebrating, when you’re grieving, when you don’t know what tomorrow holds — pray. Pray for your pastor. Pray for churches you disagree with. Prayer is the most underrated resource in the church.
Nothing Can Separate Us
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
Romans 8:31–32
Walker closed with one of the most famous passages in all of Scripture — Paul’s declaration to a small, persecuted church in Rome:
Neither death nor life, nor angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38–39
That was Paul’s word to a church facing real persecution, real confusion, real fear. And it’s God’s word to us today.
So What?
The church in America is in a tough spot. That’s not pessimism — it’s reality. But we serve a God who holds the waters of the world in His hand, who raised Jesus from the dead, and who has already won the war.
Four words for today:
- Be meek. Stop fighting every cultural battle the way the world fights. Love people across difference. Pray for your enemies. Live differently.
- Be strong. You’re not puny. You have access to the Creator of the universe through faith.
- Be prayerful. Come to God with confidence. He hears. He answers. His power is infinite.
- Rest in this: Nothing — not politics, not persecution, not culture, not death — can separate you from God’s love.
Scripture References
- Matthew 5:3–7, 9, 11 — The Beatitudes
- 1 Corinthians 9:19–23 — Paul’s Example of Adaptation
- John 3:16 — God’s Gift
- Romans 4:20 — Abraham’s Faith
- Romans 8:26–27 — The Spirit Prays for Us
- Romans 8:31–39 — Nothing Can Separate Us
- Ephesians 2:8–9 — Saved by Grace Through Faith
- Ephesians 3:20 — God’s Power at Work
- Isaiah 40:12 — God Holds the Waters
- Psalm 34:15 — The Lord’s Eyes and Ears
- Job 36:27 — The Water Cycle as God’s Work