Pages

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Ed Stetzer: The State of Faith Down Under


Three major components to the current state of the Church in Australia

Less than a week from today one of my daughters and I will be on our way to the other side of the world to spend some time in Australia. I have been before, but I am excited to take Jaclyn Down Under to experience a different culture (and hopefully see some animals as that is her favorite thing to do). But I am also going to help some friends as they think more about how to be on mission, and to present some research about church planting in Sydney. (I'll be in Adelaide, Sydney, and Brisbane, in that order, and you can find the events listed here.)

Ray Williams, my new friend in Adelaide, gathered all these reports for us. In preparation for the trip, I had Chris Martin, an ubergenius kid on our team, filter through it for this blog post. I'll present some of this in Australia (assuming it all checks out), in addition to the new research LifeWay Research has been doing on church planting in Australia.

I do this to try to understand the context better, but also to invite your correction and better information. Please feel free to share what you might have that points to a different (or more current) reality. Keep in mind that I am, by no means, an expert in Australian statistics. But, we tried to gather up research from people/organizations who would be those experts.

So, here are some stats...

The average Australian is a 37-year-old native-born woman with an English background, who speaks English as her primary language and, for now, self-identifies as a Christian.

Here are three primary pieces of the churches of Australia that will be integral to their health in the long run.... Keep reading

No comments:

Post a Comment