Wake Up Church!

Per Lane Greene in a recent Economist article “Losing Faith,” writes, “Experts such as those at the Pew Research Centre have traditionally distinguished between Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelical Protestants and black Protestants in their counting, given how these groups differ religiously and socially. They have also coined the term “Nones” to cover atheists, agnostics and those who say they have no religion. Nones already outnumber Catholics and mainline Protestants. In 2019 they could also outnumber evangelicals. [bctt tweet=”There will soon be more Nones than any single group of Christians.”]

Michael Metzger of the Clapham Commentary (http://www.doggieheadtilt.com/missing-a-milestone/#_edn1) asks the right question, “What does this mean? First, the US is secularizing faster than many realize. This will accelerate the rise of Nones. A secularizing society will encourage many to come out of the closet (or out of the pews). Greene writes, “For all those already comfortable telling a pollster they are atheist or agnostic, there are surely many in the pews not quite ready to say it.” [bctt tweet=”Increasing numbers of Christians, mostly millennials, will uncouple from the faith.”] [bctt tweet=”Perhaps 2019 is the year that Evangelical powers-that-be start to really realize that significant structural changes must begin to be made.”] [bctt tweet=”Don’t miss what I am saying. The Gospel does not change. Yet, many other things are always on the table.”] Church in 2019 looks different than church in 1900, or in Luther’s day. It even looks different than church when I was growing up. Change that honors the Gospel is inevitable. Now is the time. This is one of the passions of Gospel App Ministry. We are exploring and creating new approaches to missions and church for today’s audience in the US and Canada. Check out the website today (www.gospel-app.com).