Dirty, Dirty Feet
Catalyst had this interesting post this morning regarding a study that was recently presented at the Baptist World Alliance gathering in Prague.
David Laubach presented some startling statistics last week at the Baptist World Alliance gathering in Prague. He stated that church attendance is stagnant or declining in 75% of America’s churches. Furthermore, he said that 24% of churches are only growing by getting members from the declining churches - and only 1% of churches are growing from the unchurched, he said.
After reading these stats I couldn’t help but ask this question: As those involved in church marketing and communications, what are we doing (or not doing) to spread the gospel to those who are unchurched?
As my boy Paul says it: “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’” (Romans 10:14-15)
Not sure our feet are looking too good today… How does this all make you feel?
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At my church, it seems like we are in “maintenance mode”. We aren’t doing a whole lot for the unchurched rather than the normal “if anyone wants to join the church *cough* or accept Christ *cough*, come now. No? Ok”.
Adam, from the results of this study your church is not alone. Another question we’ve been throwing around here at The Plow is who are those 1% of the churches that ARE reaching the unchurched? What are they doing that’s working?
First of all….love the image. Second…the statistics are sobering. But I’m wondering if they tell us what we think they tell us. I wonder…if we’re the missional church, why are we measuring the “spread of the gospel” with an attractional metric? Is church attendance the best measure of whether or not we’re spreading the gospel? Is the message we’re spreading, “Come to Jesus,” or “Come to church”….and might the effectiveness or success of those two messages be measured differently?
Bravo, Kim! I think you hit the nail on the head.