From: hartley@maths.uwa.oz.au (Mike Hartley)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Christianity in Decline?
Date: 28 Jan 93 08:20:49 GMT
Organization: The University of Western Australia

jfc@nic.cerf.net (Co Ho) writes:


>	Keep in mind that:

>1) The way we measure 'declining' and 'increasing' is base on what we see
>and not on what God see.  He always has a different angle too look at things.

"And of the _increase_ of his government, there shall be _no_end_!!
Hallelujah!!

>2) If we talk about population of Christians, keep in mind that the
>world's population has been growing exponentially, therefore, that will
>make comparision with Christian's population extremely hard.  (Arithmetric
>growth vs. Geometric - or Logarithmic - growth) - I don't remember the
>exact name, but you get the ideas!

Geometric.

But Co Ho has raised an important point here. Why should the growth of
the church be only an arithmetic increase?

Here are some thoughts gleaned from a book I recently read, entitled
"where do we go from here?" by Ralph Neighbour.

In a typical church, only about 10% - 15% of the membership are 
actively serving the Lord, or are actively developing the precious
spiritual gifts that the Lord has given to them. Compare this with
1 Cor 14:26, where Paul says "Whenever you come together, _EACH_ of
you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, 
has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification"
Each of us????? How can this be?????

In a typical church, on the occasions when someone is led to Christ,
generally, none of the other members sees them do it, so there is little
opportunity for anyone else to learn how.

For these reasons, a typical church does not make disciples, it makes
converts. What is the difference? A convert is someone who believes
the gospel, and is ready to be trained in the ways of God and the work
of the ministry, so that they can become a disciple. A disciple is
someone who goes out and does the work of God, being a minister of
reconciliation, and eqipping the saints for the work of the ministry.

A typical church has a few specialists that make all the converts,
but most don't really know how to go about making the converts into
disciples. 

      [	For the mathematicians amongst you: 
	Case I: we have a certain number of Specialists, who make converts.
	The rate of increase is proportional to the number of specialists,
	which is a fixed number, since there is no effective way of 
	training large numbers of converts to make them specialists.
	This results in a linear growth.
	Case II: we have a certain (initial) number of disciples.
	The rate of increase of that number is proportional to itself,
	so we get a geometric increase. ]

Also, after the church reaches a certain size, the specialists are so busy
that they don't have any more time for non-Christians, so the size of the
church plateaus. This usually happens at around 50 members - rarely does
the size of a typical church grow beyond a few hundred.

The Christian Church _Must_ attain exponential growth, otherwise we will 
become just an insignificant speck on the face of the world. This can
ONLY happen if we foster, within our churches, an environment where
all are able to minister, and all are built up and encouraged to 
reach out and bless others. Not only can this be done, but it has
been done in various places, and where it has, the church does
grow in an exponential way, glory be to God...



--
Michael Hartley 		    _-_|\  | "All things works for good to
hartley@madvax.maths.uwa.oz.au     /	 \ |  them that love God - them that
University of WA ----------------> *_.-._/ |  are the called according to His
					v  |  purpose" - Romans 8:28