A Nation Without God
There is a move to reshape America. Whether by man or the devil, it is to reshape America without God. Everybody has a god, so who will replace the God who has been so prominent in the foundation and development of America. The new god is designed to be the state. To achieve this God has to be marginalized.
A new god like the God will define the moral standards and provide people’s needs, creating greater dependence on government and hence greater control over them. The church is the primary advocate of God along with other spiritual institutions. Therefore, churches are targets in the “no God” movement. COVID has aided their effort. It is estimated by researchers that 30 percent of churches will be closed soon even after the pandemic is over.
92% of churchgoers say they don’t plan to attend church more often after the Coronavirus pandemic is over than they did before the pandemic began.
Part of the effort in the diminishing God in culture is to divert churches from their mission. For churches to survive and thrive they have to reproduce themselves.
Most churches are doing little to help themselves. Growth necessitates enlistment, evangelism that is. Studies show less than 10% of sermons preached in evangelical churches even mentioned hell, sin, salvation, or heaven.
A person, attending every service in an evangelical church for two months straight, would have less than a 10% chance of hearing a phrase that included the words “hell” or “redemption,” two of the most distinctive words that characterize evangelical beliefs.
Compounding this is the fact 57% of regular churchgoers say they have never had a religious experience that changed their life. How can they be expected to tell others of such a need?
Researchers estimate the average church loses approximately six percent of their membership annually as a result of aging, death, anger, illness, or a move. That means that unless a church enlists six percent of new members per year they will be 60% smaller in ten years.
68% of all evangelical churches in the United States have a congregation with less than 100 people including children and half of those churches have less than 50! Observe the average age of today’s members. They constitute an aging membership.
Even prior to COVID youth were not attending worship. Thus, they are having little or no religious training. They are bereft of Bible knowledge.
Only 12% of young people, ages 18-24, identify as Evangelical Christians, which is less than half of the national average.
Basically the media is without a positive representation of God. If they are not directly attempting to minimize Him, they are portraying life without Him as the norm. Youth are learning this by the examples they are seeing. They are seeing a God free life and no need for biblical standards. This will eventuate in a citizenship without God. A nation with no God consciousness is not likely to live by His standards.
There is an opportunity, 78% of the unchurched say they would listen to someone who shared what they believed about Christianity. As an aside, a good sign is 35 million Americans who seldom prayed or darken the door of the church have started praying during the COVID epidemic.
Can you help a church develop a growth mentality?
* Most of these statistics come from a research group named “Outside the Walls.”