Growing up my family generally gravitated towards the smaller churches, it is what I became comfortable in. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying large churches aren't effective/alive/ or any other stereotypical comment out there. This isn't a post about how precious community is in a small church and how every one is so real when there is less than 50 people. In fact I have seen many large churches alive with the power of God doing great things and many small churches divided by hypocrisy and small group schedules. Instead I am stating I got comfortable in small churches because my parents attending them as I grew up. A church can be a healthy church at 20 people and at 2,000 people.. it becomes our personal responsibility to create community and culture in our church home.
So what happens when you have a place where people don't know healthy community and don't understand the culture the Bible sets as example for the church... When the few are outnumbered by the many, and when the many don't understand God. The result is a lot of un-healthy or dying churches. The end is congregations struggling to stay afloat, not even able to comprehend growing even though they have the desire.
We talked with the UK director of GEM while back about how preparing was going and how we we praying for England. We shared that sometimes our biggest struggle is to get people to see the need in England. This led us to talking about churches. You see like us, and England is like us in many ways, it has both big and small churches.. well it did.
Except that in England
church attendance has dropped by 37% in the last 20 years
leaving the
average size of a church to be 28 people.
of the 40,000 churches in all of the UK,
80% are dying...
this means they
haven't seen growth in the last 5 years....
Think of your church, whether big or small... when was the last time you saw a new family? I know at my church it happens almost weekly..... So why not there?
We talk about the fact that
6% of people in England attend church..
well the reality is if you took foreigners out of that it would be
more accurate to say that around
1.5% of English people attend church.
When we were talking with the GEM director we still felt that was a high number for the few number of people who attend church in the area we are going to. He said it was.
In fact, in the area we are going to it is probably more like
.4% attend church
...... (don't miss the . before the 4)
Think of your church.. now erase everyone but .4% of people... that would be crazy to think about. I constantly run into Christians when I am around town, people I know from my church or other churches I have connections too. I couldn't imagine not having that fellowship we are blessed by.. So why don't they have it?
These facts we found out are numbers, numbers that we hope stop you, that maybe break your heart a little. Numbers, that we could easily just read as percentages I want to challenge you to see the people they represent. Then take that heart, that thought, that understanding and I challenge you to pray. Pray for the churches and the people in England. Then share the need that is there. Share with your family, colleagues, friends, Bible study, about the need and the ministry that we are trying to start to reach the other 99.6 percent in the area. Then love and support. Love the church family God has given you here, support the body and the people in your whelm of influence. Be grateful for the blessing you have because there are Christians all around the world, yes even in places that look like here, that don't have the support base you have, that you may have been taking for granted.
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