“ … and they restored the house of God to its proper condition and strengthened it.” ~ 2 Chron. 24:13b
During the early years of king Joash there was a great revitalization of faith and worship among those in Judah. When I read through this passage it reminds me of the great need that the Western church has for revitalizing Christianity; we’ve become extremely complacent, trudging along with lack-luster faith.
Western Christianity is hemorrhaging! Seventy percent (70%) of the U.S. population reports a connection with Jesus Christ, yet according to David Olson, on any given Sunday, less than 17.5% of the population actually attends an orthodox worship service.[1] Even more sobering is the reality that American churches would need to plant 2,900 new churches a year, just to keep up with the current pace of population growth.[2] With 80 to 85 percent of churches in America either plateauing or in decline,[3] there is an urgent call for church revitalization and planting. For this reason, the church must re-engage the missio Dei, the sending of God, and shift to a missional praxis. The Western world has become the new mission field.
Even though Olson’s statistics display that only 17.5% of the population in North America is attending Sunday services, Doug Murren of the Murren Group, declared that number to be too high and suggested Olson’s 2008 numbers were lagging a bit behind; his ghastly number of only 12% is staggering.[4] Furthermore, Murren’s research indicates “20% of people leave their church every year, which would require a visitor rate of at least 30% of a church’s size per year, just to grow.”[5]
The Barna Group assessed that “more than one-third of America’s adults are essentially secular in belief and practice.”[6] With a population of roughly two hundred forty million Americans, one hundred seventy million of them (71%), either consider themselves as having no religious affiliation at all or Christian in name only.[7] As JR Woodward observed, “Functional Christendom has given way to a ‘spiritual,’ secular and pluralist society where a growing number view the church with suspicion and some with downright disdain.”[8] The Western world is officially a mission field and is in dire need of apostolic movement.
If these numbers do not cause you to see the vital need for revitalization and church planting then nothing will—but perhaps you’re among the complacent crowd? My call to you today is not for you to get up on the soapbox and scream out for revival, but to begin revival within your own heart. Start living the life of Christ on mission within your home, neighborhood, and community—get activated in your faith. If evangelicalism is to re-engage the Western culture it will not be with political agendas but with a true apostolic movement, where Christ is Lord and the Church is on mission.
[1] David T. Olson, The American Church in Crisis: Groundbreaking Research Based On a National Database of Over 200,000 Churches (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008), 181.
[2] Ibid., 181.
[3] Aubrey Malphurs, Look Before You Lead: How to Discern and Shape Your Church Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2013), 200.
[4] Doug Murren, “De-Churching or Re-Gathering,” themurrengroup.com, March, 2015.
[5] Ibid., 5.
[6] George Barna and David Kinnaman, Churchless: Understanding Today’s Unchurched and How to Connect with Them (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2014), 16.
[7] Aubrey Malphurs, Planting Growing Churches For the 21st Century: A Comprehensive Guide for New Churches and Those Desiring Renewal, 3rd Ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2004), 12.
[8] JR Woodward, Creating a Missional Culture: Equipping the Church for the Sake of the World (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2012), 30.
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