T he good news is that Churches of Christ are not declining as some reported. The bad news is that they are not growing and have not been growing for over 13 years. It is not that we do not know how or that we do not have the necessary resources. All that we lack is the will power.
T here is good news and bad news.
The good news is that the bad news is not entirely true. Churches of Christ in the United States have been given a lot of bad news in recent years. 1 Much of that bad news has been inaccurate, exaggerated, and presented out of context. It is time to set the record straight with some honest realism that avoids the extremes of exaggerated optimism and exaggerated pessimism. Churches of Christ have experienced very little growth in the United States in the 1990s.