Here are some statistics that John Piper cited from David Earley in a recent sermon:
1. There are 195 million non-churched people in America, making America one of the top four largest “unchurched” nations in the world.
2. In spite of the rise of mega-churches, no county in America has a greater church population than it did ten years ago.
3. During the last ten years, combined communicant membership of all Protestant denominations declined by 9.5 percent (4,498,242), while the national population increased by 11.4 percent (24,153,000).
4. Each year 3,500 to 4,000 churches close their doors forever; yet only as many as 1,500 new churches are started.
5. There are now nearly 60 percent fewer churches per 10,000 persons than in 1920.
- In 1920 27 churches existed for every 10,000 Americans.
- In 1950 17 churches existed for every 10,000 Americans.
- In 1996 11 churches existed for every 10,000 Americans.
6. “Today, of the approximately 350,000 churches in America, four out of five are either plateaued or declining.”
7. American denomination recently found that 80% of its converts came to Christ in churches less than two years old.
8. Hence the claim of many leaders: “The single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven is planting new churches” (Peter Wagner).
He also lists some poverty statistics taken from Wikipedia, which everybody should be familiar with by now. Find them here.
Just for fun, I found a quick map that gives a generalized picture of religious adherents in the US from 2000: Religious Adherents. The map is from a page on Valparaiso University’s web site called American Ethnic Geography.
So, how does the statistic that America is in the top four unchurched nations in the world settle with you? And do you agree with that last claim that “the single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven is planting new churches”?
