Every other day or so someone raises the alarm about some new threat to the survival of the church. While some are nothing more than blatant, emotion-stirring appeals for support or finance, there ARE many real threats to the church from within and without, and make no mistake, persecution is coming.
There is no lack for diagnosis of the church’s ills and their cure. Some perceive the church as stuck in the past and think the latest trend is the solution. “Everyone is doing it!” Others are alarmed that the church is adapting to the world and think tradition is the solution. “We’ve always done it this way!”
But the survival of the church is not in the hands of politicians or pastors. Its safety is not with the progressives, the militant, or even the First Amendment. The prescription for its ills is neither radical traditionalism or trendiness. The church’s success does not lie with its colleges, seminaries, para-church organizations, church-growth gurus, or celebrity-marqueed conferences. The future of the church rests in the person of its founder, Jesus Christ, and He has promised, “the gates of hell will not prevail.”
Nephos 
Amen!
What a novel thing to do — point us all back to Jesus!! I think more of this kind of thinking would eliminate much of the ineffectiveness of the church today due to the exorbitant amount of human effort to make it successful.
I was recently at a seminar where we were told about the danger of the church becoming irrelevant in our society but the presenter was very clear on the fact that while some expressions of the church may die, we have the proven assurance (as you have already pointed out) that “the gates of hell will not prevail.”
And that is the truth.