Spooky Reality

I am usually a positive post kind of guy, but these stats bear some reflection. They are from an American Society for Church Growth (ASCG) report titled "Enlarging our Borders." This was presented to the Executive Presbytery in January 1999. (I snagged these from www.campuschurch.com - a group committed to rapid saturation church planting in the campus setting. We will be hearing more from Jaeson Ma and his crew).

• Churches lose estimated 2,765,000 people each year to nominalism and secularism.
• Between 3,500 to 4,000 churches close their doors each year in America.
• Last 10 years, the combined communicant membership of all Protestant denominations has declined by 9.5% (4,498,242), while national population has increased by 11% (24,253,000).
• Half of all churches last year did not add one new member through "conversion growth"

Ouch! It seems like the way we "do" church may be suspect.