THE MISSION FIELD

Part of understanding the solution is understanding the problem. The following is another excerpt from Joel Comiskey, giving an overview of our current North American situation. No battle worth fighting is easy, but an appropriate understanding of our challenge helps us to move forward with wisdom and care.

When we think of the mission field, we often hear exotic names like Timbuktu or Borneo. For too long we’ve considered going “over there” to do missions. It’s now time to realize that the mission field is North America. North America has so many unchurched people that it’s now one of the mission targets of Christians who live in other countries. North American culture, in fact, could be more accurately described as “pre-Christian.” Leonard Sweet, professor at Drew University, says, “Only two countries have more nonbelievers than the US: India and China. The US is the third largest mission field in the world.” The general North American population has increased by 15% since 1991. Yet in that same period, the number of people who do not attend church has increased by 92%- from 39 million to 100 million.
Though church attendance is declining, the proportion of those who say they have no religion rose from 9% to nearly 14% between 1992 and 2002. During that same period, the proportion of those who said they belonged to other religions- including Islam- increased from 3% to 7%. Members of non-Christian world religions don’t live “over there” anymore; Muslims, Buddhists, and Sikhs live and work along side Protestants and Catholics here in North America.
Much has been written about the proliferation of mega churches in North America. Though we should rejoice in church growth, the reality is that much of the mega church growth is transfer growth- which suits the consumer- shopping mentality of an entrepreneurial society. The fact that some churches are growing rapidly while attendance as a whole is declining should cause us to wonder whether the mega church phenomenon is working. The facts indicate that:
-81% of US churches are either plateaued or declining in attendance
-18% of US churches are growing primarily by transfer growth
-1% of the churches are growing by conversion growth
Eddie Gibbs, professor at Fuller Seminary writes, “Conversion growth is just not happening much in the US. Roughly half of all churches do not add one new person through conversion growth.” Clegg and Bird write, “in America, it takes the combined efforts of eighty-five Christians working over an entire year to produce one convert.” I don’t claim that the cell church offers a quick fix to this problem. I do believe, however, that it offers the best solution for sustained growth in both quality and quantity. As we will see, the cell church approach makes it possible for all believers to be involved together in reaping the harvest.
Please take advantage of the email address above, faithcommunityhouston@gmail.com, to ask for prayer about anything. As requests come in we will add them to the list daily.

Blessings,

Pastor Bryan