Tithing drops
Tithing was down in the U.S. from 8 percent of households tithing in 2001 to 3 percent in 2002. Among born-again adults, 14 percent said they tithed in 2001, but only 6 percent claimed to in 2002. In 2003 Southern Baptists gave an average of 2.03 percent of their earnings to the local church.
Dr. Bob Reccord, president of the North American Mission Board, cited a grave concern over a decline in giving to cooperative missions efforts by churches. In 1980, he said, the average church gave 10.5 percent of its budget to Southern Baptists Cooperative Program, while the current average is 7.4 percenta decrease of nearly 30 percent. If that trend continues, weve got 40 years left, period. Reccord said.
Source: Leadership, Fall 2003 and Baptist Press, October 9, 2003 and Report of the SBC Funding Study Committee to the SBC Executive Committee, October 23, 2003
Quick Quotes
Genuine faith is infectious; its contagious. If youve got it, you cant keep it for yourself. If youve got it, your friends know it and certainly your family knows it.
SBC President Jack Graham on radio program, Strength for Living, November 28, 2003
God gave us a 20/20 vision that sees everyone in the state and passing through the state having the opportunity to hear the gospel to such a degree that he or she can respond.
Mark Edlund, Executive Director of the Colorado Baptist General Convention
For the first time since we embraced the vision to plant 1,000 churches by the year 2020, we are seeing church planting movements develop. But we realize this is just the tip of the iceberg and that there is still much work left to do.
Gerry Taillon, National Ministry Leader, Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists
We live in a world of complex relationships that bless, challenge and perplex us. The good news is that the Master continues to touch and transform all who follow Him today.
Paula Colquitt, Director of Womens Resources, Nevada Baptist Convention
NAMB has assisted the Arkansas Convention and our associations in reaching hundreds of young people through our successful Real Encounter Weekends.
Dr. Emil Turner, Executive Director of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, where the high school events have resulted in many decisions for Christ and also a record number of youth surrendering to calls to ministry. On Mission interview, January 21, 2004
Sources : Rocky Mountain Baptist, December 2003, CCSB Baptist Horizon, 2003 and The Nevada Baptist, October 2003
Recipe for Divorce
Couples who live together before marriage are 50 percent more likely to divorce than couples who dont cohabitate, according to a study that reviewed 50 years of data on the issue. More and more couples seem to be moving in together. In less than 40 years, cohabitation by unmarried couples has increased 1,000 percent. More than 7 million American couples have this arrangement today, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Almost 1.2 million Canadian couples are living in common-law unions, according to the 2001 General Social Survey. Statistics Canada reported that between 1995 and 2001, the number of couples living together rose by 20 percent. In contrast, the number of married couples increased by just 3 percent, growing to 6.4 million. A recent Focus on the Family of Canada survey found that 63 percent of Canadians under the age of 40 agreed with the statement that living together tends to improve the chances for a happy, successful marriage. Statistics prove otherwise. A Stats Canada survey found that men and women who live under common-law are twice as likely to separate than those who are married.
Sources: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 14, 2003; Baptist Press, September 12, 2003; Statistics Canada, Changing conjugal life in Canada, The Daily, July 11, 2002 and The Interim, Toronto, Canada, August 2002
Did you know?
The United States is the third largest unchurched nation in the world
North America is the only continent where Christianity is not growing.
Seven out of 10 people in North America do not know Christ.
The United States is now the 13th largest receptor of Christian missionaries in the world.
Only 4 percent of Americans have a biblical worldview.
More than 80 percent of all churches in the United States are plateaued or declining.
We lose 72 churches per week or 10.27 per day.
We gain 24 churches per week or 3.42 per day. Thats a net loss of 48 churches per week or 6.85 per day.
Half of all churches last year did not add one new member through conversion growth.
While the U.S. population grew by 11.4 percent over the last 10 years, church growth declined by 9.5 percent.
47 percent of the U.S. population will be non Anglo-American by 2050.
French Canadians are the largest unreached people group (6 million with .5 percent Christian) in North America.
2001 Census data indicates that the population in Quebec is 83.2 percent Roman Catholic and 0.5 percent Baptist.
More than 85 million people in the U.S. live among 200 language/culture groups other than Anglo-American.
The number of Protestants in Canada is declining: The number of Protestants fell 8.2 percent to about 8.7 million or 29 percent of the total pop, between 1991 and 2001. Protestants remain the 2nd largest religious group in Canada. Roman Catholic affiliation leads with 43 percent. No religion stands at 16 percent and Baptists are 2.5 percent. Baptists in Canada are slightly more numerous than Muslims who make up 2 percent. Protestants in Canada include mainline religions (Anglican, Christian Reformed, Lutheran, United Church) that do not always preach a born again gospel. Protestants also include Mennonite, Pentecostal and Salvation Army that tend to be more evangelical in their practice.
Outreach Canada, a ministry organization that specializes in church research estimates that in 2001 there were some 3.2 million Christians (10.9% of total population in 2001) in Conservative Protestant denominations, up from 2.9 million in 1991. (www.outreach.ca)
Sources: North American Mission Board Church Planting Team and Research Services, Statistics Canada, 2001, and The Barna Update, December 1, 2003
By the numbers
2.8 millionIncrease in the U.S. population from 2002-2003
1.3 millionIncrease in the U.S. international population from 2002-2003
47 millionNumber of Americans who speak a language other than English
74,000Increase in the population of Nevada in 2003, the fastest-growing state for the 17th straight year
Sources: Time, January 12, 2004 and U.S. Census Bureau, December 18, 2003
The decay of morality
The Barna Research Group asked U.S. adults about the acceptability of 10 moral behaviors. A majority of Americans (61 percent) found gambling to be the most acceptable behavior. The
activity that garnered the least support was using illegal drugs (17 percent).
Source: The Barna Update, November 3, 2003
Homosexuality in our timeHow lost is North America? A good benchmark for the moral decay and courseness of society is the success of the homosexual agenda.
The homosexual urban legendWhile homosexuals claim they make up 10 percent of the population, the reality is closer to 1 to 2 percent. The National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS) found that 2.8 percent of the male and 1.4 percent of the female population identify themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual. The study also found that only 0.9 percent of men and 0.4 percent of women reported having only same-sex partners since age 18, a figure that would repre-sent a total of only 1.4 million Americans as homosexual. The NHSLS is considered the most widely accepted study of sexual practices in the United States.
Census 2000 figures show there are a total of 106,741,426 households in the U.S., and only 0.42 percent of those are unmarried same-sex householdsless than one percent. Many believe homosexuals use the bogus 10 percent figure in order to inflate their numbers and their influence.
Attitudes about homosexuals influenced by religious beliefsOpposition to gay marriage has increased since summer 2003, and a narrow majority of Americans (51 percent) also oppose allowing gays and lesbians to enter legal agreements that fall short of marriage. Moreover, despite the overall rise in tolerance toward gays since the 1980s, many Americans remain highly critical of homosexuals, and religious belief is a major factor in these attitudes.
A national survey conducted by the Pew Research Center finds that homosexuality is a major topic in churches and other houses of worship. In fact, clergy are nearly as likely to address homosexuality from the pulpit as they are to speak out about abortion or prayer in school, say people who attend church regularly. The poll finds that people who hear clergy talk about homosexuality are more likely to have highly unfavorable views of gays and lesbians. Evangelicals who hear sermons on this issue are much more apt than others to believe that gays and lesbians can change their sexual orientation (65 percent compared to 22 percent) and to view homosexuality as a threat to society (52 percent compared to 11 percent).
The public as a whole has moved decisively in the direction of tolerance; in particular, discrimination against homosexuals is now widely opposed. The current survey shows that a majority of Americans (54 percent) feel that, as parents, gay and lesbian couples can do as good a job as heterosexual couples.
Yet as public attention has turned to questions of gay marriageand as homosexuals have become far more visible in society and the entertainment mediathere have been some signs of a backlash. Roughly 31 percent of Americans say greater acceptance of gays would be a bad thing for the country, up from 23 percent in a 2000 survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation. And nearly half the public (48 percent) thinks the entertainment media present too many gay themes and characters, compared with 37 percent in the same 2000 survey.
Sources: Traditional Values Coalition, January 2004 and The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, January 2004
TIMELINE
JuneJune 10, 2003 - Canadian court legalizes gay marriages
June 26, 2003 - Supreme Court overturns Texas anti-sodomy law, in effect decriminalizing gay sex in the last 13 states where such laws were on the books
JulyJuly 2, 2003 - Wal-Mart, the countrys largest private employer, extends its anti-discrimination policy to gays and lesbians
July 15, 2003 - Queer Eye for the Straight Guy debuts on television
July 30, 2003 - President Bush says that he will support a law that would define marriage as a union between a woman and a man
augustAugust 5, 2003 - Episcopal Church elects first openly gay bishop
septemberSeptember 2003 - Brides magazine features its first article on same-sex weddings
September 19, 2003 - California lawmakers grant same-sex couples nearly all the rights of married spouses
September 20, 2003 - Grammy-award winning singer, Melissa Etheridge, weds girlfriend in private ceremony in Malibu, California
october
novemberNovember 18, 2003 - Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules gays have a constitutional right to marry
decemberDecember 16, 2003 - President Bush says that if necessary he would support a constitutional amendment which would define marriage as between a man and a woman
january 2004january 18, 2004 - The L Word (for lesbian) debuts on television
Timeline Sources: CBSnews.com, Dec. 22, 2003; New York Times, July 2, 2003; Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 29, 2003 and The Gay Financial Network, September 23, 2003
Majority of Americans say no to gay marriage
A New York Times/CBS News national poll conducted in December indicated that 61 percent of Americans (up from 55 percent in July) opposed legalizing homosexual marriage, and 55 percent favored an amendment to the United States Constitution that would allow marriage only between a man and a woman.
Source: Family Research Council, January 7, 2004 and CBSNEWS.com, December 21, 2003
The world at our doorstep: where they live, work and pray
Among Americans age 5 and over, 47 million speak a language other than English at home (about 18 percent of the population)a growth of 47 percent between 1990 and 2000.
4.1 million Muslims live in the U.S.
Muslim Americans tend to be heavily concentrated in Detroit, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Detroits population includes more Muslims than virtually any other U.S. city. McDonalds restaurants in the Detroit area now provide halal Chicken McNuggets for the growing population of Muslim customers there.
2.5 million Buddhists live in the U.S.
1 million Hindus live in the U.S. Another 100,000 live in Canada. Edison, New Jersey, has the highest concentration of Hindus in the U.S.
About a quarter million Sikhs live in America, with 100,000 living on each coast. Other areas with high numbers of Sikhs are Chicago, Detroit, and Austin, Texas.
New York City has the largest Chinatown in the United States, with an estimated population in excess of 100,000, excluding undocumented illegal aliens. Counting the illegals could easily double that number.
Orange County in California has the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam at 233,000.
The largest concentration of Afghans is in Freemont, California.
The largest numbers of immigrants coming into Seattle are from the Philippines, Vietnam and South Korea.
Vietnamese and South Koreans top the list of immigrants coming into the Atlanta metropolitan area.
Miami is the Latino capital of the United States with Latinos and Hispanics making up 57 percent of the Miami-Dade County population.
About half of all Arab-Americans live in five states: California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey and New York. One of the highest concentrations of Arab-Americans can be found in Dearborn, Michigan, where roughly 30 percent of the population is of Arab descent.
Jews make up roughly 2 percent of the U.S. population. More Jews live in the U.S. than in Israel.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is one of the worlds richest and fastest-growing religious movements. The Mormon church today has a worldwide membership of 11 millionmore than half outside the U.S. If current trends hold, Mormons could number 265 million worldwide by 2080, second only in number to Roman Catholics. Such an increase in membership may be attributed to an aggressive missionary program that enlists more than 60 percent of all young Mormons.
Sources: U.S. Census 2000; U.S. News and World Report, Special Collectors Edition, 2004; Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs in America by Mann, Gurinder Singh, et al; Reaching the World in Our Own Backyard by Rajendra K. Pillai, 2003; American Religious Identification Survey, 2001; Christian Science Monitor, October 7, 2002; Islamonline.net; CNN.com, April 26, 2003 and Crosswalk.com, December 29, 2003
Fast facts
Almost 25,000 students and adults participated in 2003 in the rehabilitation of substandard housing and other ministry projects of World Changers.
Southern Baptists gave $49,650,279 to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering in 2003.
More than 45,000 individuals have made professions of faith through NAMBs Strategic Focus Cities efforts since 2000.
Relief efforts following Hurricane Isabel in 2003 involved Southern Baptist Disaster Relief teams from 24 state conventions.
Southern Baptists had 27,523 trained Disaster Relief volunteers in 2002, up from 24,874 in 2001.
A record number of Southern Baptist associations (774) have committed to being engaged in church planting in 2004.
Canadian Southern Baptists planted 39 churches in 2003. This brings the total of Canadian Southern Baptist churches to 207 and represents a 22 percent increase in churches.
Sources: The North American Mission Board and the Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists
The New Testament meets Cosmo
With fresh-faced teen models and teasers for beauty tips and dating advice, youd think you were looking at the next issue of CosmoGirl. Take a closer look. Revolve may look like the popular teen magazine, but its the complete New Testament from Matthew to Revelation.
We asked teen girls how often they read the Bible, says Laurie Whaley, one of Revolves editors and a spokeswoman for its publisher, Thomas Nelson Bibles. The response that came back was, Well, we dont read the Bible.
They said, Its just too freaky, too intimidating. It doesnt make any sense. So in an effort to appeal to teenage girls, Thomas Nelson has given the New Testament a makeover. They hope that the magazine-style cover and bright colors will help it seem hipper to todays youth.
Source: ABCNEWS.com, August 26 2003
Does premarital sex cause depression in teenagers?
According to a Heritage Foundation study, it might. The study found that 25.3 percent of sexually active teenage girls said they were often depressed, compared to 7.7 percent of girls who had not had sexual intercourse. For boys, the numbers were 8.3 percent versus 3.4 percent, respectively. The study also said 14.3 percent of sexually active girls had attempted suicide, compared to 5.1 percent of sexually inactive girls. Six percent of sexually active boys had attempted suicide versus only 0.7 percent of boys who had not had sexual intercourse.
Behaviors other than sexuality factor into depression, but statistics indicate that premarital sex doesnt lead to the happiness and acceptance many teens expect.
Source: AllProDad.com (a website dedicated to helping fathers connect with their kids), August 21, 2003