"When it comes to religion, the USA is now land of the freelancers.
The percentage. of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation. The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist. The Rust Belt is less Catholic. And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers — or falling off the faith map completely.
These dramatic shifts in just 18 years are detailed in the new American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), to be released today. It finds that, despite growth and immigration that has added nearly 50 million adults to the U.S. population, almost all religious denominations have lost ground since the first ARIS survey in 1990.
"More than ever before, people are just making up their own stories of who they are. They say, 'I'm everything. I'm nothing. I believe in myself,' " says Barry Kosmin, survey co-author"
I have been a Pastor now for 11 years. 2 years I was on staff for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. 5 years I was on staff at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, TX. Now for almost 4 years I have been at Horizon Community Church in Cincinnati, OH. Why do I tell you this? Because after reading the above article I feel like I am failing. I feel like as a whole the church is failing to be the church. We have hit the point of people not caring. We have hit the point of people not living. Don't get me wrong, we the overall church have seen more churches grow over a weekly attendance of 2000 people on average the past 18 years then any other time in history. We have seen millions of people come to call themselves Christians or Christ-Followers. We have seen miracles and testimonies of life change. The problem is that we have also seen more people become full of apathy and distaste towards us then in years past. We have seen tons of churches start and even more churches close.
Wake Up Church! Wake up and live like you have been given life. Wake up and enjoy being who God created you to be. Wake up and start showing love like you have been given love. Wake up and give grace like there is no tomorrow. Wake up and speak truth to a nation that has lost it. Wake up! Wake UP! WAKE UP!
Excuse me, I just heard my alarm go off......
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3 Responses to "Ministry Monday: A Wake Up Call"I agree. I see more churches focused inward and not loving outward. I think you triggered my alarm clock as well. Thanks for the great post.
On the news last night they pointed out some limits of the survey.
Namely, it measures "religion" and not "faith." Many people responded that they were not religious, but still had a faith. IE: They no longer attended a church but still had some belief system. The survey doesn't really pick that up.
Also, evangelicals are still growing steadily. Baptists may have dropped but the overall evangelical demographic has increased.
And the number of people self-identifying as atheists has grown to 1.6 million or some such. That's not a huge number, but it is cause for concern.
yeah I was gonna tell you that today. I was having some similar thoughts and then heard the survey was a bit misleading on the news... and saw a bit more of the survey as well.
A little misleading but also startling that Atheism is growing.
anyway just a couple cents for you.
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