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DECLINE OF CHRISTIANITY IN AMERICA
North America is the only continent on earth where Christianity is not growing.
Only 17.5% of the population of the US attends church on a regular Sunday.
During the 1990’s there was a 19.4% decline in church attendance.
85% of churches in America are plateaued or declining.
Only 12% of children raised in Bible Believing churches stay in the church after age 18.
With our large population of unchurched individuals, we are the 4th largest mission field.
If this is all true, why is it, and what can we do about it?
(From a sermon by Davon Huss, "7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1," 6/7/2010)
A DYING CHURCH
An artist was once asked to put on canvas what he considered to be the picture best symbolizing a decaying and dying church. After several months, he returned and reported that he had finished the task. The hour finally arrived when the painting was to be unveiled. Several people standing around the easel had already given their description of what they thought the church would look like. Some had said it would be a rundown building in great need of repair and paint. Weeds would be growing in the church yard, and there would be some broken window panes. Everyone in the group seemed to have a similar picture in mind.
However, when the cloth was removed, a hush fell over the group. Everyone was stunned. Before their eyes was an absolutely beautiful church building. The grounds were well kept and the exterior of the building was in excellent condition. After a few minutes, one person stepped forward and said to the artist, "I thought we asked you to paint a dying church?"
The artist smiled and invited everyone to step closer to the painting. He pointed through the windows to the empty pews and to the collection plate on the table. There was nothing in the plate but cobwebs.
The church that has cobwebs in its collection plate is a church that is decaying and dying. Without the giver, there is no giving. Without the giving, ministries cannot be conducted by the church. Without ministries being conducted, the mission of the church cannot be carried out. If the mission of the church is not carried out, the church is purposeless and dead.
(From a sermon by Terry Blankenship, Igniting a Lifeless Church Service, 2/7/2011)
GROWTH IN PERSECUTION
I remember feeling torn and confused when Simon Guillebaud in Burundi, Central Africa reported violence against him and Christians there. In his email he said we are not asking for protection. We know that violence and threats will come. What we ask for is boldness to preach the name of the Lord Jesus.
Did you know that in 1959 there were 1 million Roman Catholics and 600,000 Protestants in China? That may sound a lot but compared to a population that was approaching 1 billion; it was tiny seed. Then in 1959 China closed its doors to the outside world. Many people began to wrap a burial shroud around the Christian church in China. They said it would never survive. Then in 1979 China again opened its doors to the West and to the rest of the world. And a strange thing had happened. That tiny seed 20 years earlier had taken root. The number of Roman Catholics during those dark years rose from 1 million to 3 million and the number of Protestants rose from 600,000 to 3 million. The church during persecution and hardship had grown 53% in twenty years.
(From a sermon by Warner Pidgeon, Growth in Suffering, 3/10/2011)
TOO GOOD FOR YOUR CHURCH
A good set of clothes makes all the difference. A Methodist church tried to get a man to attend, but he never did. "Why don't you come?" the minister asked, and the man finally admitted it was because he didn't have proper clothes. So a member of the congregation took him to a clothing store and got him a nice suit, shirt, tie and shoes. But on the following Sunday, he still did not show up. So the minister visited him again and asked him why he didn't come. "When I got dressed up in my new suit," the man explained...
KOREAN CELL CHURCHES
Assemblies of God Church in Seoul, Korea: It started in 1958 when Paul Yonggi Cho (later David) held a service in his friend’s home with her three children. Passionate desire to share Christ by inviting other people to their home church soon resulted in exponential growth. This process resulted in a church of 3,000 members by 1964. Because it became too large for him to manage, Cho later divided the city of Seoul into twenty zones, or "cells," as he called them, and began training leaders for each cell, who would hold services for worship and Bible study in their homes during the week. Cell leaders were encouraged to invite non-Christian neighbours to attend, to learn about Christianity (this was their Alpha approach Jeff). Each cell leader was required to train an assistant, and when cell membership reached a certain number, the assistant leader would form a new cell, taking about half of the old cell with him or her. As of 2007 Cho’s Full Gospel Church registered 1,000,000 members.
CHURCH ASKS NON-PARTICIPANTS TO LEAVE
Just a few years ago, Larknews.com carried the following fictional piece of satire on its website. In the form of a news release, it reported:
Julie and Bob Clark were stunned to receive a letter from their church in July asking them to "participate in the life of the church" -- or worship elsewhere. "They basically called us freeloaders," says Julie. "We were freeloaders," says Bob.
In a trend that may signal rough times for wallflower Christians, the Faith Community Church of Winston-Salem has asked "non-participating members" to stop attending. "No more Mr. Nice Church," says the executive pastor, newly hired from Cingular Wireless. "Bigger is not always better. Providing free services indefinitely to complacent Christians is not our mission."
"Freeloading" Christians were straining the church's nursery and facility resources and harming the church's ability to reach the lost, says the pastor. "When your bottom line is saving souls, you get impatient with people who interfere with that goal."
Faith Community sent polite but firm letters to families who attend church services and "freebie events," but never volunteer, never give, and do not belong to a small group or other ministry. The church estimates that only half of its regular attendees have volunteered in the past 3 years, and a third have never given to the church.
"Before now, we made people feel comfortable and welcome, and tried to coax them to give a little something in return," says a staff member. "That's changed. We're done being the community nanny."
Surprisingly, the move to dis-invite people has drawn a positive response from men in the community who like the idea of an in-your-face church. "I thought, A church that doesn't allow wussies--that rocks," says Bob Clark, who admires the church more since they told him to get lost.
(Joel Kilpatrick, "Mega-Church Downsizes, Cuts Non-Essential Members," Larknews.com (September, 2006) From a sermon by C. Philip Green, Genuine Servants, 8/5/2010)
32% of evangelical Protestant churches are in a strong financial position vs. 13% weak.
(LifeWay Research 7-8/05)
GIVE HIM THE POST AND LET'S MOVE ON
The story’s told about a young preacher who was pastoring a very traditional and established church. The church was beginning to experience phenomenal growth. It got to the place where the sanctuary was no longer suitable for the congregation. They were going to have to buy or build a new sanctuary.
The young preacher had a vision from God. But he had to come to the church meeting and present his vision to the church and hear from the church. So he came to the business meeting that night ready to share his vision of how God was telling the church to build a bigger and better sanctuary. He finished his vision summary and was waiting for a response from the church.
About that time, an aged deacon rose from his feet and said, "Preacher I thank God for you, but we can’t move from this building." The young preacher stood there not knowing what to say. The deacon continued, "Pastor, we can’t move from this building that pulpit you preach from. My grandfather used to preach from there, and this chair I just arose from is where my daddy used to pray, and this post that I’m standing next to, I was saved standing right next to this post. Now preacher, I don’t mean to any harm, but we can’t mo...
John Piper:
"Luke celebrates this solution. The widows were cared for, and the ministry of the Word of God was not forsaken. Both were utterly crucial. Either could have undermined the church and ended its amazing growth. The solution was the diversity of gifts and calling. The solution was a new kind of teamwork in the body of Christ."
(John Piper, Serving Widows, Preaching the Word, and Winning Priests).
WE'RE BUILDING TWO A DAY
In the 1880s the Methodist Church was privileged to have a leader named C. C. McCabe. He was a church extension pioneer and strategist, and a great achiever he was.
One day he was on a train, riding out to the Pacific Northwest to help develop and launch a strategy for planting hundreds of new congregations in that region.
On that train he picked up a newspaper and read an account of a speech given the day before by Robert Ingersoll, the most noted agnostic/infidel of his time.
It was addressed to the national meeting of Atheists and Agnostics (something like that). In his speech Robert Ingersoll proclaimed that the churches of America were in the process of dying and in another generation there wouldn't be any of them left.
That incensed C. C. McCabe. He got off the train at the next town, went into the Western Union office and dictated a telegram to Robert Ingersoll. The message arrived at the convention while it was still meeting. The telegram read, "Dear Bob, in the Methodist church we're building a new church a day and we proposed to make it two." Signed: C. C. McCabe.
Somehow the word about that telegram got out and a folk song evolved in the Pacific Northwest. It was sung at revival meetings, brush arbors, etc. It went like this:
The infidels, a motley band,
In council met and said,
"The churches are dying throughout the land
And soon they'll all be dead."
When suddenly a telegram came
And caught them with dismay,
Reading, "All hail the power of Jesus' name,
We're building two a day.
Then the refrain went:
We're building two a day, dear Bob;
We're building two a day!
All hail the power of Jesus' name,
We're building two a day!
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