Comments on: In defense of iMonk and the coming Evangelical collapse

By: Eclectic Christian

Eclectic Christian — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:58:05 +0000

Hi Joel (IrreligiousLife), I said that the CMA was among those leading the way. Data on their growth can be found on their website. From their you can see that in 1981 they had 251 churches and 44,549 members and adherents. By 2007 this jumped to 424 churches and 118,443 members and adherents. This is a 69% growth in the number of churches and a 168% growth in the number of members and adherents over a period of 26 years. There is an excellent articles on Evangelicals and the Canadian census, that shows growth by denomination. It also highlights problems with survey questions by Statistics Canada which will hopefully be resolved by 2011. You can read it here. Pay closest attention to Table 4.

By: IrreligiousLife

IrreligiousLife — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:12:45 +0000

Hi Mike. First of all, thank you for your hard work in analysing the statistics. One point on which I would like more clarification is your statement the the CMA is leading the way in church growth in Canada. Where are the statistics or on what are you basing this observation?

By: nathaniel

nathaniel — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 07:28:30 +0000

alarming statistics. but of course, statistics don’t paint the whole picture.

i think, anecdotally, of the difference between myself and my brother. we were raised in marginally evangelical mainline churches. now, as young adults (23 and 20 respectively) i am deeply committed to my Christian religious identity, and probably going to end up in some sort of minsitry career, and my brother has no interest in being called a Christian.

nevertheless, in our conversations, our outlook is strikingly similar. our key difference is in our tolerance for the inadequacy of contemporary churches and perspectives on how to deal with the percieved shallowness of so many Christians. i think if good things were happening in churches, my brother would be more than willing to reintegrate with the Christian community.

there are plenty of wildcards left in the deck: a spontaneous, healthy Christian movement that can revive the latent ideas and imagry in the imaginations of the currently unchurched. even our current crisis: i think historically, crisis has been very good for getting people into churches (although i don’t have any statistics to back that up .)

i guess we will see what happens.

By: Eclectic Christian

Eclectic Christian — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 02:18:44 +0000

ZaftigAmazon -

OK, I am 45 years old. This in only the fourth time that I have seen the word Zaftig in print!

I agree what you say about craving community. Community is so important to the life of any church. One of the most interesting surveys you can do at a church is ask people (anonymously) how many friends they have at the church. Those who have the fewest are the ones least likely to be there long term.

By: ZaftigAmazon

ZaftigAmazon — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:53:01 +0000

Has it ever occurred to you that the evangelicals have brought this decline on themselves? Witnessing to people about Jesus Christ is not enough. What people are craving is a community, not more admonitions about “Get right with God, because Jesus is coming.” Secular society –with its emphasis on aquiring goods— becomes more and more meaningless, while churches appear to be devoid of life and joy, or starkly authoritarian. Vine Deloria (“God is Red”) pointed this out over 30 years ago. No wonder western people are trying to force their way into American Indian religious communities.

By: jeofurry

jeofurry — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 05:17:02 +0000

Michael,
I wanted to tell you what a nice job you did with the statistical analysis for iMonk’s information. You have far more patience than I do for those numbers and did a great job. I feel some kinship with you, since I pastor an SBC church just a few miles south of the Canadian border in North Dakota. We don’t go into Canada as much and most of our folks don’t travel there as much as they used to because of tighter border security=more hassle, but I have kept an eye on the way things are in Canada for believers. I concur with your thinking that it is likely a sign of what is to come here in the US.

By: Alarms Keep Flashing and Sounding « Ponder Anew

Alarms Keep Flashing and Sounding « Ponder Anew — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:22:54 +0000

[...] and restructuring that will leave it looking nothing like it does today. Here is one observers statistical analysis of the [...]