I've written that I think part of the decline in church has to do with the reality that so much of the church doesn't actually believe what it proclaims. We proclaim life, death, and resurrection. But when it comes to living into that, keeping the institution on life support so no one experiences change becomes the core value. Why should anyone listen to the church if we aren't going to even listen to our own proclamation? We shouldn't be resisting death, we should be moving towards it so that we can get to resurrection and new life, in what ever form that will be for the church.