Posted on 08/01/2010 2:24:08 AM PDT by Cronos
For the nineteenth consecutive year, the U.S. Assemblies of God has reported a gain in inclusive membership. According to the National Council of Churches' 2010 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches, the AG grew 1.27 percent for the reporting year to 2,863,265.
Joining the Assemblies of God in growth were Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), up 1.76 percent; the Catholic Church, up 1.49 percent; the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, up 1.71 percent; and Jehovah Witness, up 2 percent.
The report, which is based on statistics gathered in 2008 and reported in 2009,
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Of significance, the Assemblies of God is now officially ranked the ninth largest church in the United States by the yearbook, moving past the Presbyterian Church (USA). The AG is about 600,000 members behind eighth-placed National Baptist Convention of America. The Catholic Church leads all United States' churches with more than 68.1 million members.
Dr. Eileen W. Lindner, editor of the yearbook since 1998, noted that America has not experienced the decline in church that Europe has over the past quarter-century. "American church membership trends have defied gravity," she stated, "particularly when the Pentecostal experience is included."
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Lindner also directed attention to immigrants, observing that in the past 50 years, there has been a strong influx of "Christian communities," which have had a profound impact on the U.S. faith community.
"It is wonderful to see continued growth in the Assemblies of God," says AG General Secretary James Bradford. "Although we believe there is ample room for double-digit growth in the Assemblies of God in the near future, our goal isn't simply numbers. Our goal is to help people, no matter what their religious affiliation, establish an ongoing, biblical relationship with Jesus Christ.
"In the end," Bradford continues, "the Lord isn't going to care what church we attended, but it is of eternal consequence whether or not we've chosen to serve Him and make Him Lord of our lives."
ping
Sadly, US Christian church membership has been rocked, counter to the quotation in the article. Catholic membership defied the trend in membership, but with a collapse in participation in the 1960s through 1980s. “Mainstream” Protestant membership has absolutely plunged. Even Southern Baptists have stopped growing, and “nondenominational” movement isn’t anything near what people think it is. (They don’t seem to pass on the faith to kids.)
“In the end,” Bradford continues, “the Lord isn’t going to care what church we attended, but it is of eternal consequence whether or not we’ve chosen to serve Him and make Him Lord of our lives.”
Well, if you decide to go to PCUSA or TEC or another liberal denomination, where you are immersed in unrebuted arguments about how real “love” means “acceptance” of all lifestyles and that you’ve misunderstood various biblical passages, and you surround yourself with people who reinforce your “tolerant” behavior, but shun you when you stand up for righteousness, you just might start to believe them.
If you discover that one denomination speaks the hard truths and offers the true sacraments, you’d better not dawdle in your old demonination just because it’s more comfortable, or because you don’t want to upset your relatives, or because it might distance yourself from certain friends. You’d better go seek out the truth and work out your salvation. Because one church offers lies and another offers truth, and because one truth offers the vessels through which grace is poured, while another offers a mockery of God. And if you shrug your shoulders and say, “God doesn’t care which church I belong to,” your soul is in deep, deep trouble.
You obviously didn’t read the entire quote. I’ll repeat the part you missed:
“...but it is of eternal consequence whether or not we’ve chosen to serve Him and make Him Lord of our lives.”
I did read the entire quote. It’s sorta like saying, “It doesn’t matter if you hit the ball, but whether you score more runs.” It’s true that whoever scores the most runs wins in baseball, but you aren’t going to score many runs if you don’t try to hit the ball. The quote didn’t make clear that serving Him necessarily means joining the right church; in fact, it seemed to suggest that joining the right church didn’t matter as long as you’ve chosen to serve him.
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