From the current issue of Outreach Magazine:

• More than 25 million people in the US have never heard the Gospel (Ralph Moore, How to Multiply Your Church)
• Only 34% of adults believe in absolute moral truth (Barna).
• Only 27% of adults are confident that Satan exists (Barna).
• For most churches the largest worship attendance occurs between the 15^th and 20^th years of their life cycle (Gary McIntosh, Taking Your Church to the Next Level).
• 2010 growth by denominations – 1) Mormon Church, 1.71% to 6 million, 2) Roman Catholic Church, 1.49% to 68.1 million, 3) Assemblies of God, 1.27% to 2.9 million. Every other mainline denom in the US decreased (National Council of Churches).
• Every year 2.7 million church members fall into inactivity (Schaeffer Institute).
• Residents of the south make up half of all the nations small group attendees (Barna).
• 28% of Americans believe religion is old-fashioned and out of date. Up from 7% in 1958 (Gallup).
• Christian Church attendance is 2 times higher in the South and Midwest than it is in the West and Northeast (David T. Olson, The American Church in Crisis).

Interestingly enough, these #’s reported in Outreach’s Annual 100 Largest and Fastest Growing Churches in America edition. Neil Cole notes in his book Church 3.0 that almost every statistical category for evangelical life and Biblical morality and spirituality is decreasing in America except one – the growth in the number of  mega-churches. Correlations? or is it only that growth of our churches is not keeping up with the national birth rate? Whatever the case, we’ve got work to do.