21st Century Church....
or
'You are a Christian because somebody cared. Now its your turn'
Warren Wiersbe
John Bingham has some interesting and depressing stats on belief in Britain in his recent Telegraph article.
A Vicar pal sent me this film from a recent service in Lichfield Diocese and asked me for my thoughts. Where do I begin. My thoughts are simply that 40% of the clergy of the C of E are due to retire in the next 10 years and the average age of a congregant is rapidly advancing towards 70. Also, according to YFC, apparently 85% of children will leave school having had no participation at all in church. David Keen has plotted the latest C of E data and 'minus' seems to be the theme. The C of E is sadly on course to become little more than a minor sect in a post-Christian world to which, according to Bingham, the Chinese will be sending missionaries.
Don't get me wrong- it's a huge challenge with no quick fix and we are, as one local church, trying to write (and pray for) a very different story- as this post encourages.
What would Hudson Taylor and C T Studd have made of it all I wonder?
And the plan is?
Did I mention I wrote a post called 'Why plant churches?'
Instead of spending the next year having shared conversations about human sexuality we could perhaps better focus our energy talking about mission, evangelism and church planting in the post-modern world? Check out Hillsong London (below on USA Today) for one of the fresher faces of contemporary Christianity planting churches in the UK.
Which of these two expressions of Christianity would you want to engage with if you were 19?
'Touch the sky when your knees hit the ground'
It's just a thought......
No comments:
Post a Comment