BiblicalInsights.net

     According to a recent English Church Census, regular churchgoers (of all denominations) amount to 6.3% of the total population.  The proportion of churches per individuals is now one church to 1,340 people.  The size of the average Sunday congregation is 84.  Between 1998 and 2005, there was an overall decline in regular church attendance of 15% –and the trend continues.  Only 2.5 percent of the population is attending Bible-based churches (Already Gone, Ken Ham and Britt Beemer, pp. 10-12).
     Christianity is on the decline in England.  Could the same thing be happening in the United States?  Ham and Beemer warn: “We are one generation away from the evaporation of church as we know it.” (p. 25).  George Barna indicates that a majority of twenty-somethings–61% of today’s young adults–had been churched at one point during their teen years, but they are now spiritually disengaged (i.e. not actively attending church, reading the Bible, or praying) (Already Gone, p. 19).  The top ten reasons for “dropouts” are as follows:
     -12% Boring Service
     -12% Legalism
     -11% Hypocrisy of leaders
     -10% Too political
     -9% Self-righteous people
     -7% Distance from home
     -6% Not relevant to personal growth
     -6% God would not condemn to hell
     -5% Bible not relevant/not practical
     -5% Couldn’t find my preferred denomination in area
     (Already Gone, p. 29)
     Most people assume that students are lost in college where they meet with ideas that challenge their faith.  But it turns out that only 11 percent of those who have left the church did so during the college years.  Almost 90 percent of them were lost in middle school and high school (Already Gone, p. 31).  About 40 percent of them were lost in middle school and elementary school. 
     The major challenge seems to be to the truthfulness and believability of the Bible.  Secular humanism (denial of the existence of God and affirmation of the theory of organic evolution) have taken their tole.
     -39.8% first had doubts about the accounts and stories of the Bible in middle school.
     -43.7% had their first doubts in high school.
     -10.6% had their first doubts during college. (Already Gone, p. 32).
     Young people are being influenced to accept the theory of evolution and reject the Bible account of creation.  When you add to this the disintegration of moral values and the destruction of the home, you have a combination that is challenging the basic values and principles of Christianity.  I might add that postmodernism, with its rejection of absolute truth and affirmation of acceptance of all religions as equal, has also destroyed faith in the objective truth of God’s Word and eroded faith in the Bible and New Testament Christianity.
     To counter this decline, we must reaffirm the basic principles of Christianity and do a better job of showing the evidence for the truthfulness of Christianity.  Christianity is rooted in historical and verifiable evidences that cannot be overthrown.  I personally invite you to investigate the evidence for Christianity.  Many have done so in the past and have accepted the truth that salvation from sin is available to all people based upon the merits of the death of Jesus Christ and Him alone!