interesting article...

I was led to A VERY INTERESTING ARTICLE by Sam Farina that I wanted to share…

The initial concept of congregational redevelopment may seem a bit superfluous, especially to those churches in the United States which can vouch for a recent increase in their Sunday morning attendance. However, as a church growth analyst George Barna points out, 70-80% of that growth has primarily resulted from Christians transferring from one church to another. Dr. Leonard Sweet also has shown that nearly three fourths of churches are actually declining in their numbers. Their members are joining other churches. Sweet says that 24% of churches are growing simply by the migration. That means only 1% of churches in America are growing by reaching the lost!

Half of all protestant churches have an attendance of 75 or less and three fourths have an attendance of 150 or less. Only a small 5% average attendance of 350 or more, and 1% average 1,000 or more in weekly attendees.

The numbers for denomination of the Assemblies of God are not all that different. In fact, Charles Arn, another church growth professional, has shown that during the last ten years membership in Pentecostal churches have declined by 9.5% although the population grew by 11%. Nearly 85% of Assemblies of God churches have plateaued or are declining. Of all churches affiliated with the Assemblies of God, 84% are under 199 in attendance, while 56% are below 99 in attendance.

When you examine the location of existing Assemblies of God churches, you find only 25% are in urban areas and 50% are in towns of 10,000 or less. In 1900 America had 27 churches of all denominations for every 10,000 people. There is an average of 310 churches that close each month.

Add to those statistics that 80% of ministers leave ministry before completing 5 years of service and of those with an earned Masters Degree, 50% do not stay in vocational ministry for longer than 10 years of service. With these statistics it is not surprising that in the United States 71% of ministers say they are in deep financial trouble, 65% of all clergy marriages end in divorce, and 1,200 ministers a month are leaving the ministry as a vocation. While these shocking statistics exist in the church, we find that outside the church 26% of people who claim to be born again Christians do not attend church.

The need for redevelopment becomes a little clearer. According to Bill Easum, the focus of redevelopment in the Assemblies of God does not need to be institutional. “Institutions construct buildings, erect structures, and restructure; organisms grow people, plant deep roots, and develop relationships and networks with the environment around them. We must go back to our roots, back to the primitive – before institutions, before denominations – to raw, miraculous, supernatural power of a runaway, uncontrollable, spirituality experienced on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2).“

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Thoughts? Reactions? How does your church match up with this article?