Sunday, December 09, 2007

Culture in the Church

I'm reading a book by John Burke entitled, No Perfect People Allowed. I can tell from the opening pages I will be posting quite a bit on this one. Here is a quote from the book....

"...pollster George Barna warns of the waning influence of the church on emerging generations, calling for radical change before a postmortem is declared:

Our goal cannot simply be a timid, powerless survival; it must be the role that Christ called the Church to play, that of a loving, authoritative, healing, and compelling influence upon the world...lacking such a turn-about, we may rightfully anticipate the virtual disappearance of the Christian Church in this nation.

Statistically, this has already happened in England and Europe, a continent further down the post-Christian turnpike than North America. Church attendance in England averages about 7% of the population, and Europe as a whole runs a close race. In effect, the Christian Church in Europe has gone the way of the dinosaur, and the North American Church tracks close behind. Barna and others note that the current generation is actually the first generation in American history in which a majority of those seeking faith begin their spiritual journey with a faith group other than Christianity."

Did you catch that last line? That was mind boggling to me. It is a really good question, though. Where did your spiritual journey start?


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Can't wait to see hear more about how this book provokes your thinking...God has used this book along with some circumstances in this last year to stir the hearts of our ministry staff. Sheri