When I was growing up in the San Fransisco Bay Area, I heard the phrase “Christian Nation” all over the place. People were trying to say that America was founded on Christian principles and Christian beliefs and that these were being lost. The truth of those statements is not part of this post, it is true, however, that people thought that way, at least in my circles. Today, by any measure, things have gotten further and further away from a “Christian Nation” concept. Today with the drive for diversity and pluralism, government forces have declared that every religion is equal and that Islam is more equal than others.
George Barna is a pollster. More than that, he does statistical analysis of behavior on a national scale. He began this practice working for a credit card company determining national trends to help the credit card company make billions. Bill Hybils of Willow Creek church north of Chicago thought it would be informative to turn Barna’s skills to the church, so he hired him away from the credit card company to work for his church.
Barna has spent decades asking Christians questions and tabulating the results. In January of 2017, the Barna group released “The State of Pastors” as a book and a free webinar with interviews. Their conclusion was that church attendance in America is at an all time low and it is not coming back anytime soon. Political ideas have replaces religious ideas and people are more interested in racial divides and political divides than they are in true religion.
Recently, the Barna Group released a survey of hundreds of thousands of people in his report “Church Attendance Trends Around the Country,” where he shows three categories of people: Unchurched, Dechurched and Churched. The San Fransisco Bay Area scored the lowest in church attendance and the highest in dechurched: those who used to go to church but no longer attend. Chattanooga Tennessee is the winner with close to 60% of the population attending church. Even with a high of 60% being in church, I would not consider that a Christian city. Church has become something that people do or don’t do and we muddy the waters when we divide people into their church attendance numbers and not like we used to divide them: saved and unsaved.
So, if we were ever a Christian Nation, the writing on the wall (a biblical reference/idiom) states that we are moving away from that and some areas of the country will have no Christian influence at all, if trends continue. Yet there are churches in every city in America and the command from Scripture is to preach the word, in season and out (2 Timothy 4:2). Any pastor that is focused on numbers will lose their focus and become a false teacher. Then the unsaved world will gather the false teachers around them, in large quantities, because they scratch their itching ears (2 Timothy 4:3). Stay true to the word, do not focus on the world and let God take care of the numbers. Preach Christ Crucified is the command. Act accordingly.
#Thoughts on Church#
George Barna is a pollster. More than that, he does statistical analysis of behavior on a national scale. He began this practice working for a credit card company determining national trends to help the credit card company make billions. Bill Hybils of Willow Creek church north of Chicago thought it would be informative to turn Barna’s skills to the church, so he hired him away from the credit card company to work for his church.
Barna has spent decades asking Christians questions and tabulating the results. In January of 2017, the Barna group released “The State of Pastors” as a book and a free webinar with interviews. Their conclusion was that church attendance in America is at an all time low and it is not coming back anytime soon. Political ideas have replaces religious ideas and people are more interested in racial divides and political divides than they are in true religion.
Recently, the Barna Group released a survey of hundreds of thousands of people in his report “Church Attendance Trends Around the Country,” where he shows three categories of people: Unchurched, Dechurched and Churched. The San Fransisco Bay Area scored the lowest in church attendance and the highest in dechurched: those who used to go to church but no longer attend. Chattanooga Tennessee is the winner with close to 60% of the population attending church. Even with a high of 60% being in church, I would not consider that a Christian city. Church has become something that people do or don’t do and we muddy the waters when we divide people into their church attendance numbers and not like we used to divide them: saved and unsaved.
So, if we were ever a Christian Nation, the writing on the wall (a biblical reference/idiom) states that we are moving away from that and some areas of the country will have no Christian influence at all, if trends continue. Yet there are churches in every city in America and the command from Scripture is to preach the word, in season and out (2 Timothy 4:2). Any pastor that is focused on numbers will lose their focus and become a false teacher. Then the unsaved world will gather the false teachers around them, in large quantities, because they scratch their itching ears (2 Timothy 4:3). Stay true to the word, do not focus on the world and let God take care of the numbers. Preach Christ Crucified is the command. Act accordingly.
#Thoughts on Church#
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