-Jim

That is a more significant figure, I think, and speaks of a decrease in a sense of value in the teaching of the church by Christians, many of whom I suspect would watch Idol before they would come to Sunday school.

-Jim

Since 1991 the ratio SS Attend/AM worship attendance has been in steady decline from 86% to 68% (about a 20% decrease).

Keith

As for church models, I think culture has a lot to do with it. It’s not that we need to be culturally relevant, per se, but our pews are adorned by products of a local culture that are inculcated with the array of popular philosophies of the same. The methods for addressing matters of faith in each community must differ accordingly and in many places, Sunday School, Sunday evening and Wednesday evening services can help produce the sense of community within the church focused on the worship of God, study of His Word and ministerial outreach to the unreached community that can serve as an agent of counter-cultural visibility of the gospel. In other words, participation in church activities over and against the culture at large normalizes fidelity and draws the attention of non-Christians.

So, what are we do say with all these other more reliable stats in decline (Sunday school, average worship, baptisms)? Given that the Church is growing exponentially on the mission fields of our world and the American church is in decline across denomination lines, I think it points to a bigger problem i.e., we in America have lost our evangelistic compassion for the lost. We trade members between churches and pad our membership roles and call that growth while the world goes to hell. The answer is not better literature or better trained teachers or even discipleship, the answer is compassion for the lost. “Look the fields are white unto harvest, but where are the laborers?”

I remember an evangelistic song from the past that went like this. This is my prayer.

“The crowd was so tired and wiery, people scattered everywhere. To the master they looked just like sheep without a shepherd’s care.

Lord please move me with compassion for the lost I pray, for the millions who are lost and cannot find their way. Lord please move with love no matter what the cost, Lord please move me with compassion for the lost.”

At this rate the SBC will be dead in another 30 years from lack of compassion and it doesn’t matter what steps you take to revitalize Sunday school if you don’t have Christ’s compassion for the lost.

– Todd

Todd Benkert’s last blog post..A Second Look at the Annual Church Profile (ACP)

matt

Matt Svoboda’s last blog post..The Pastor and Evangelism

I don’t want to make a big deal out it. I was uncomfortable with this blog repeating second hand information, especially of that nature. I do not question the relevance of what your wrote, I just felt like it was hearsay to repeat it here.

I do agree that putting money making over disciple making would be a problem. It may be possible that is happening at LifeWay, it seems the case with many other publishers too. But I’m not ready to entertain that based on what someone overheard someone say, then told someone else, who threw it up in a blog comment. You may not agree, but I think we should give LifeWay the benefit of the doubt.

Perhaps that was a situation where your friend should have confronted the brother who who he overheard? Or perhaps you could have corrected your friend?

Thanks for clarifying your intent and contributing to the conversation.

Tony,

I don’t really know why this was edited. I told a true story of what someone working at Lifeway said. My point wasn’t that I think he was committed to SUnday School because of his business model. My point was showing how pathetic it was to not consider another style of ministry because you might not make as much money. Doesn’t that sound pathetic to you?

Matt Svoboda’s last blog post..The Pastor and Evangelism

Agreed.

No, I wasn’t trying to suggest even for a moment that the numbers add up—they don’t add up, and I agree that inadequate discipling relationships is the primary culprit. It does seem, however, that the redistribution of persons in new church-starts represents a portion of the equation that needs to be explored.

Even if such redistribution is the case, though, there’s still a significant problem: To wit, new churches should be reaching and discipling new believers more than providing a venue where believers from other congregations transfer. It appears to me—based not only on the stats but also on experience in four different church starts—that too much of our much-touted rapid growth in new church starts actually stems from dissatisfied persons moving from established churches into the new church starts.

Matt Svoboda’s last blog post..The Pastor and Evangelism