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Mormons out-give evangelicals by about 3 to 1. Mormons give an average of 7.5% of their income to the church compared to evangelicals 2.5%. Add to this the fact that all but 85 top LDS leaders are volunteers which frees up millions of dollars for their worldwide mission efforts. The average Christian church spends about 60% of it’s budget on staff salaries and benefits. (CT 6/15/98)
The Cocooning Lifestyle Peaked in ‘98 when the typical household spent $1,601 on home furnishings and it’s been falling since. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the American household spent only $1,497 on home furnishings in ‘03. Consumers are downscaling, downsizing and eliminating clutter. Touch points of the new consumer trend are magazines like Real Simple, dedicated to doing more with less, and shows like TLC’s Clean Sweep and HGTVs Mission: Organization. The new do-it-yourself home decorating approach is about doing more with less. (Unity Mark 12/14/04)
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)
10% of church members cannot be found?
20% of church members never attend church
25% admit that they never pray
35% admit that they do not read their Bibles
40% admit that they never contribute to the church?tithe or offering
60% never give to missions
70% never assume responsibility within the church
85% never invite anyone to church
95 % have never won anyone...
St. Pixels, the world’s first online 3D church, was created by UK Christian webzine shipoffools.com and is sponsored by the Methodist Church of Great Britain. During it‘s pilot run it had as many as 41,000 attempts to log in to the church and averaged over 7,300 visits per day. More than half the visitors were under age 30 and 60% were male. (ASSIST News Service, and Mission America Coalition E-connections 5-6/06)
Fox Entertainment Group (FEG), owned by News Corp (also owns HarperCollins’ Zondervan and HarperOne) has acquired Beliefnet, the largest online faith and spirituality Web destination. “FEG’s vast resources will enable Beliefnet to expand our audience, enhance our offerings and more effectively carry out our mission,” says Steven Waldman, Beliefnet CEO. The Pew Internet Project claims more than 82 million Americans and 64% of all Internet users use the Web for faith-related matters. Marketresearch.com puts the demand for religious and spiritually oriented materials (books, DVDs, software, etc). at over $8 billion. (CBA Retailers+Resources Industry Brief 12/10/07)
Contributions to U.S. churches in '05 (most recent data available) were 2.58% of members' income vs. 2.56% in '04 according to empty tomb. Giving to "church, other religious organizations" accounted for 72% of funds directed to charity. The under-25 age group gave 87% of their donations to churches, which may indicate that religious teachings form philanthropic values in the U.S. For each dollar donated to a congregation, denominations spent 2.2¢ on international missions in '05, down from 7¢ in the '20s. The study's authors, John and Sylvia Ronsvalle, say evangelical Christians could complete the task of global evangelization for 7¢ per member per day. (Baptist Press 10/12/07)
What someone has called the pleasure explosion has overtaken us so that in the United States alone the pleasure business has been growing at an average rate of 6 billion dollars a year since 1965. Thrills and chills are available on demand. Popular amusement parks offer themes and thrills of all sorts, including spectacular shows and breathtaking rides. And, there are the video games which rival TV itself, one of the most pervasive sources of amusement. One estimate is that 5 billion or more is spent in a single year on video games and that during a single year people play them for the equivalent of 75 thousand manned years. Over and above that something like an additional one billion dollars is spent annually on games that can be plugged in and played on television sets and computers in our homes.
There can be little doubt that we have become a generation addicted to pleasure, that this is a generation addicted to pleasure more than to the things of God. The United States probably has the greatest percentage of people going to church on a more or less regular basis. The spending habits of the American public make it quite evident that token attendance to religious duties is in no way allowed to interfere with most people’s pleasures.
One survey taken some years ago, that is still relatively valid today, showed that in one year Americans spent 16 billion dollars for amusements, 10.5 billion for alcohol, 5 bil...
The Agency for the Performing Arts Inc. has become the third major agency (along with William Morris and Creative Artists Agency) to offer a division dedicated solely to booking artists in the Christian music marketplace. (Mission America Coalition E-Connections 10/07)
SermonCentral Staff
HOPE BRINGS SURVIVAL
Viktor Frankl, Austrian psychologist, survived death camps of Nazi Germany. Frankl was determined to know why some survived and some did not. He looked at several factors: health, vitality, family, survival skills, intelligence. He concluded that none of these factors was primarily responsible. But the single most significant factor was a sense of future vision--the conviction that they had a mission to perform, some important work left to do. Survivors of POW camps in Vietnam reported similar experiences: a compelling, future-oriented vision was the primary force that kept many of them alive.
(Source: Stephen Covey, First Things First, Contributed by: Joel Smith. From a sermon by Gary Stebbins, "2009: A Year of Purpose" 1/13/2009)
