George Barna's new book, Revolutions, is just being published. As many would know, Barna leads a church research institute, and is one of the more quoted people in the American Church today.
Here’s a brief summary of the book’s conclusions that I’ve seen:
* The number of Christians attending local church in the USA is declining rapidly. Today, 70% of Christians attend traditional churches, but this will sink to 30-35% in 20 years. (Why George is a bit surprised by this is beyond me. As relevancy drops so does attendance.)
* The number of those who claim to follow Jesus and who do not regularly attend a local church will grow from 30% to 70% in the next 20 years. (Again, see above.)
* Alternative fellowship forms (house churches post-modern churches etc.), currently home for about 5% of USA Christians (but growing exponentially internationally), will make up 30-35%; another 30-35% will live out their faith in the fields of media, arts and culture; the remaining 5% of Christians attending non-traditional forms of church will have a family-based spiritual life.
The reason alternatives are being sought is because they are not finding community, relationship and authenticity. Are you?
* Conclusion: a minority group presently not even noticed by many will become the mainstream of North American Christianity in only two decades. So, I guess we can either wake up and be a part of it, or continue down the road to “non-mainstream” or irrelevance.
"This is a revolution, and will change not only the recruiting strategies of seminaries and Bible schools, but also radically question church building projects," says Barna. If only half as many people will be visiting traditional congregational services in 20 years, a smaller building will suffice.
For a more in-depth review check out Andrew Jones at http://tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com/tallskinnykiwi/2005/08/george_barnas_r.html
