Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Evangelicals: Larger in Size, Smaller in Influence . . . Why?


During the last 50 years, the evangelical church grew in size at a tremendous rate to the point where we have mega-churches and mega-ministries. Unprecedented numbers of people have attended seminars, crusades, concerts and large arena events. We’ve built publishing companies and broadcast organizations to get our messages out to an ever increasing public. In 1960, there were less than 100 churches in this country that had over 1,000 members. Today, more than 10,000 churches have congregations of that size and much, much larger.

However, during that same half century, the values of our society have moved rapidly away from Biblical standards. There is rampant immorality. Cases of abuse have proliferated, even in the church. And, we see a headlong quest for wealth, power, and sensual pleasure all around us. What is most disturbing is the fact that Biblical values and ideas have been relegated to the arena of private discussion. They have become the values of a “fringe element.”
What did we do wrong? We have grown tremendously in size, but smaller in influence. There are many reasons, of course, but I’d like to suggest two that are at the heart of the matter.

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