Replies

Who does he consider Christians? Many of the mainline denominations, such as the Episcopal Church, PCUSA, etc. are led by non-Christians who are agents of Satan. Those are the churches that are collapsing.

Consider the Independent Fundamental Baptists then. The flagship Bible college for the Baptist Bible Fellowship is Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. Look at its student enrollment, which is the reservoir of trust from which it obtains pastors for its congregations; its peak enrollment of over 2,600 in the 1970s had fallen to 390 by 2012.

Apparently its membership has declined as well, although the 2009 data looks faulty. I suspect the statistics reflect churn, splits, and Protestant relocation.

Notes

The Baptist Bible Fellowship International was founded in 1950 by Reverend Beuchamp Vick with former members of the World Baptist Fellowship.
Membership Data
Year	Clergy	Churches	Members
1985	4,500	3,409	1,400,900
1986	4,500	3,449	1,405,900
1992	-	3,500	1,500,000
1994	-	3,600	1,500,000
1995	-	3,600	1,500,000
1997	7,500	4,500	1,200,000
2000	7,500	4,500	1,200,000
2002	-	4,500	1,200,000
2003	-	4,500	1,200,000
2004	-	4,500	1,200,000
2009	4,340	4,200	115,000

I was just in a church session meeting where we spent about 2 hours on the whole issue of whether we should drop the word “Presbyterian” from our church name because it now carries such a negative connotation for Christians because of PCUSA. (We left PCUSA and went to ECO which is another young Presbyterian denomination.) Our church is still growing/stable, but we are hearing that people will not come to our church because they think it is a part of the non-Christian PCUSA.

What we are hearing is that the American mainline denominations now have such a negative connotation for many American Christians that they will not attend a church with a name like “Episcopal,” “Presbyterian,” “Methodist,” etc.

However, in our area statistically Christians are not declining, they are growing, especially young people. But they are all going to newer non-denominational churches that essentially they just put together. Many meet in movie theaters, school cafeterias, etc.

The bottom line is American denominational churches have committed suicide because of the apostasy that has taken over established American churches. We don’t want to go that route so we are probably getting rid of our name.