» Trends

I stumbled on Hope for New York recently.

I’m already a big fan of what Tim Keller and the people at Redeemer Presbyterian have been doing to mobilize the whole body of Christ to plant “gospel-centred” churches throughout New York.

Looks like they’re also behind this initiative to mobilize people and resources to serve the poor and [...]

Just last week a friend confessed to me that he wondered if God had called him as an evangelistic preacher. He’s a cool guy and so was troubled by this.

Surely the conventional wisdom is that the age of mass evangelism is over?

I told him, once the pundits have all agreed, it’s time for God to [...]

Leadership Network recently reported on the trend of missionaries headed to the US. Momentum reports that the Chinese are coming. The latest edition of Pulse also looks at the movement of missionaries from the developing world to the West.

As individuals and entire people groups move from their homelands to foreign countries, many creative opportunities become [...]

Is the US becoming a minority Protestant nation? Maybe, maybe not.

Kristin Walters tells the story of how the rest of the world is coming to the rescue.
When most Americans think of megachurches and missions, they think of us reaching overseas populations. But when large churches in other countries look at the United States, some are [...]

Over the last 20 centuries Christians have announced 1,500 global plans to evangelize the world. Most of those plans failed.

The 250 plans that focused on the year 2000 fell massively short of stated goals.

So what do we do now? We put aside our past failures and begin working on our “2020” plans. After that our [...]

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A recent survey of 750 Muslim background believers revealed five common reasons why they chose to follow Christ.
The lifestyle of Christians. Former Muslims cited the love that Christians exhibited in their relationships with non-Christians and their treatment of women as equals.The power of God in answered prayers and healing. According to the survey, experiences of [...]

PBS reports on the attempt to adapt Islam for the modern/western world: Muslim Televangelists

According to Moez Masoud the goal is “to present Islam in the most coolest way possible”.

I sent the story on to “Tom” a friend working among Muslims. thought you might be interested in the email traffic. . .
Tom: Interesting – I’ve listened [...]

Here’s a graph of the growth in Southern Baptist membership over the last 50 years. Pretty impressive when you compare it to the decline of the mainline Protestants.

It’s not all good news if you look at the percentages instead of the absolute numbers. It would be even worse if you factored in population increases since [...]

The Pew Forum has released new report on American religious life. Based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans, the 140 page Landscape Survey finds that religious affiliation in the US is both diverse and fluid.

The Survey confirms that the United States is on the verge of becoming a minority Protestant country. 51% of Americans [...]

Turned up this interesting finding from the Australian National Church Life Survey (NCLS).

Church plants are more likely to attract three groups: young people, males and overseas immigrants.

All three groups are under represented in established churches.

“Young” of course is anyone under 50. After that you’re “mature”.

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