Church of Christ Report: U. S. Population FAR SURPASSES Church Growth
- Posted by: Todd
- Posted on: Tue, January 30, 2007
- Viewed 34
- (0) comments so far
Overall membership has jumped about 1.6 percent since 1980, hitting 1,265,844, according to the 2006 edition of Churches of Christ in the United States, a directory published by 21st Century Christian and compiled by statistician Carl Royster in consultation with Mac Lynn.
In the same period, the total U.S. population leaped more than 32 percent, approaching 300 million last year, according to census estimates.
“After decades of growth, church membership in the U.S. actually plateaued about 1980, and since then there has been no statistically significant growth or decline,” said Flavil Yeakley, director of the Harding Center for Church Growth in Searcy, Ark. In a report last year titled “Growth and Decline Among the Churches of Christ in the United States,,” Yeakley said churches seem to be declining in states with larger-than-average concentrations of members.
In that period, total membership fell in Church of Christ strongholds such as Oklahoma (down 13.4 percent), Tennessee (down 3.1 percent) and Arkansas (down 1.5 percent). In Texas, which accounts for nearly one-fourth of all U.S. members, total membership rose 2 percent from 1980 to 2006. But the Lone Star State’s total population soared 65 percent in that time.
While churches still send missionaries to “mission field states,” where outreach to the lost is emphasized, Yeakley said, evangelism has waned in the Bible Belt.
“In the Bible Belt states, we are seeing more church mergers, little church planting and far less emphasis on local evangelism,” Yeakley wrote in his report.
While agreeing with the need to evangelize, some church leaders cautioned against putting too much emphasis on membership numbers alone.
SOURCE: The Christian Chronicle… Read more here.
TAGS: Church Growth
The U.S. population is growing. And fast. The nation's nearly 13,000 Churches of Christ - as a group - are not. In a nutshell, that's the challenge facing a fellowship whose membership has increased only about 1.6 percent since the beginning of the Reagan era. In the same quarter-century, America as a whole grew at a rate 20 times that.
Comments
if you want a Globally Recognized Avatar (the images next to your profile) get them here. Once you sign up, they will displayed on any website that supports them.
Post a Comment