The following is a portion of an article on the Facing Forever webpage (click the link to read the entire article): How would your approach to evangelism be different if you knew that up to one-half of the people attending your church were not Christians? As startling as this idea may appear, recent research indicates it is a hard reality for many churches in the United States. Researcher George Barna has discovered the disturbing fact that “half of all adults who attend Protestant churches on a typical Sunday morning are not Christian.” He also points out that people who call themselves Christians but are not born again are “a group that constitutes a majority of churchgoers.”
Barna’s findings are similar to those reported by Bill Bright, founder and fifty-year president of Campus Crusade for Christ. According to Bright, “Our surveys suggest that over 50% of the hundred million people in church here in the United States every Sunday are not sure of their salvation.” In addition to discovering that 50% of people in church are “lost churchgoers,” the Barna Research Group has also revealed that 44% of Americans are “notional Christians.” These 90 million notional Christians are people who describe themselves as Christians but do not believe that their hope for eternal life is based on a personal relationship with Jesus and the belief that He died and rose again from the dead. According to On Mission magazine, published by the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, “notional Christians” do not know “whether they will experience eternal life, eternal damnation or some other outcome.”
When I first started to read this article a couple of years ago I could not believe that up to half of the people in US Protestant churches could be lost and without Christ, but as I continued to read about how Campus Crusade research showed the same I started to think that it could be true. It would certainly explain alot of things that are going on in the church in the US (the percentage of divorces in the church is the same as outside the church; a lack of evangelism in many churches; a lack of passion for Jesus; a lack of power to influence others in society;...). So what do you think ? Could this be true ?
Barna’s findings are similar to those reported by Bill Bright, founder and fifty-year president of Campus Crusade for Christ. According to Bright, “Our surveys suggest that over 50% of the hundred million people in church here in the United States every Sunday are not sure of their salvation.” In addition to discovering that 50% of people in church are “lost churchgoers,” the Barna Research Group has also revealed that 44% of Americans are “notional Christians.” These 90 million notional Christians are people who describe themselves as Christians but do not believe that their hope for eternal life is based on a personal relationship with Jesus and the belief that He died and rose again from the dead. According to On Mission magazine, published by the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, “notional Christians” do not know “whether they will experience eternal life, eternal damnation or some other outcome.”
When I first started to read this article a couple of years ago I could not believe that up to half of the people in US Protestant churches could be lost and without Christ, but as I continued to read about how Campus Crusade research showed the same I started to think that it could be true. It would certainly explain alot of things that are going on in the church in the US (the percentage of divorces in the church is the same as outside the church; a lack of evangelism in many churches; a lack of passion for Jesus; a lack of power to influence others in society;...). So what do you think ? Could this be true ?
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