Fast Fact

60% of Americans feel children should be encouraged to decide their religious views on their own.

Source: Religion & Ethics Weekly, "Faith and Family in America" Poll, October 2005

by the numbers

70%
Americans who say Jesus is God
or the Son of God.

61%
Americans who, though seldom or never attending church,
are convinced that God exists.

45%
Americans who say they strongly believe in the total accuracy of the Bible
Source: Harris Poll and The Sate of the Church: 2005

upcoming events

  
Single--the new normal

It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that married couples with children constitute a decreasing percentage of American households. This trend has been in place for several decades. The big surprise, according to U.S. Census Bureau numbers, is that married couples with children are no longer the most common type of household--they're number two now (22%), followed by married couples without children (21%).

The most common type of American household today is a single adult living alone: no roommates, no relatives, no kids. More than 26% of all American households meet this description. That number is projected to increase to 30% by 2010. The U.S.'s 86 million single adults could soon define the new majority. Already, unmarrieds make up 42% of the workforce, 40% of home buyers, 35% of voters and one of the most potent consumer groups on record.

According to the Institute for American Values, people are hardwired to connect with others. Meeting the basic needs for connection is essential to health and human flourishing. So how does this singleness trend affect our culture and our churches?  Singles still need a way to fill their need to connect. The church is an ideal environment for singles to connect with others. As the reality of unmarried America sinks in, churches need to become increasingly friendly to singles. For ideas on singles' ministry visit www.lifeway.com.

Sources: BusinessWeek Online

Money vs. God

A recent poll shows a direct correlation between people's income and their faith. The higher the income the less importance on faith in God.

Is your church missional?

By Dr. Ed Stetzer, director of Research and missiologist, NAMB

Still trying to decide whether your church is "traditional" or "contemporary"--and which is better? That's the wrong question. The real issue is whether your church is a biblically faithful church able to relate to the culture around you. In short, what matters is if your church is missional.

The M word has been around for a while, but has only recently become more accepted. That's good. It means that churches are asking hard questions about biblical ministry in community. What kind of church will be the most biblical and faithful in their community? If we're going to reach a changing North America, we have to contend for the unchanging faith (Jude 3) using forms that are relevant to all kinds of people (1 Corinthians 9:22-23). That's a missional church--a church acting like a missionary to the community around it while partnering with others to be missional across North America and around the world.

Why all the fuss over a word? Can't a church do what it's been called to do for more than two millennia and not mess with semantics? It certainly can. But, the reason is not the word, it's the emphasis. Churches are discovering the need to be missional in their communities. So, the important question is, "What is a missional church?"

What is a missional church?

Missional is not the same as "missions-minded," though they are both important and related. A missions-minded church is one that cares about missions around the world. It gives to missions, it goes to mission contexts, it's involved in cross-cultural missions. Missional leaders, however, know the mission field is here--now. They realize they need not only to support missions, they need to be missionaries where they are.

In its simplest form, the term missional is the noun "missionary" adapted into an adjective. For example, an "adversary" is your enemy. So, someone who is "adversarial" acts like your enemy. A church or a follower of Christ who is viewed as missional acts like a missionary. They do the things that missionaries do, regardless of the context. They can be parachute-dropped into a village in India, or into the hustle of any North American city and be missional. They study and learn a culture, live and proclaim the good news and contextualize it for that culture. Missional churches take Acts 1:8 literally and act like missionaries--sharing the gospel in word and deed--in their own Jerusalem (city or area), Judea (state or region), Samaria (North America) and to the ends of the earth.

The Missional Matrix

There are three emphases that every church in every culture needs in order to faithfully proclaim the gospel. They need to understand what Jesus called them to do, what culture they are in and what a biblical church looks like. A missional church lives at the intersection of three things.

• Who Jesus is and what he has sent us to do (Christology);
• What forms and strategies we should use to most effectively expand the kingdom where we are sent (Missiology);
• What expression of a New Testament church is most appropriate in this context (Ecclesiology).

The shaded circle below illustrates the necessity of the scriptural and theological foundation and its Holy Spirit-enabled application. Missional churches must begin and end with a solid foundation of rightly-understood biblical theology. Only within this circle should Christology, ecclesiology and missiology interact. Otherwise the church would be unbalanced and outside the bounds of scripture.

What do missional churches look like?

They are more than the things listed below, but certainly they are:

• Incarnational: Missional churches are deeply entrenched in their communities. The church is not focused on its facility, but is focused on living, demonstrating and offering biblical community to a lost world. It looks a lot like the Atlanta-based Logos Church, a new church sponsored by First Baptist Atlanta in an effort to reach the biker community. Church planter Danny Presten has become part of the biker community by working at a motorcycle store while planting Logos Church.  
• Indigenous: Missional churches are indigenous. They have taken root in the soil and reflect, to some degree, the culture of their community. An indigenous church looks different from Seattle to Senegal to Singapore. We rejoice in an African church worshipping to African music, in African dress and with African enthusiasm. Shouldn't we rejoice at churches like The 411, a new Southern Baptist church in the theater district of New York City that reflects the inherently unique cultures found there?
• Intentional: Missional churches are intentional about their methodologies. Biblical practices for preaching, discipline, baptism and other functions are vital. But negotiables such as worship style, evangelism methods, attire, service times, locations and other man-made customs are determined by their effectiveness in a specific cultural context. Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Atlanta is a perfect example--a church committed to biblical practices but intentionally using different forms of worship (from contemporary to traditional to emerging) to be missionally appropriate to several population segments in their community.

A missional church responds to the sending commands of Jesus by becoming an incarnational, indigenous and
intentional gospel presence in its context. When Jesus said, ÒAs the Father has sent Me, so send I you,Ó (John 20:21) that mandate was not to a select group of cross-cultural missionaries. Instead, that was a commission to you, me and our churches.

We have a sender (Jesus), a message (the gospel) and a people to whom we are sent (real people in culture). It's worth the effort to go beyond our personal preferences and our attractional methods to move out and proclaim a faithful gospel in whatever context we find ourselves--inside our church services, but very often outside the walls. That's a missional church.

Ed Stetzer, Ph.D., is research team director and missiologist at the North American Mission Board. He is the co-author of Breaking the Missional Code: When Churches Become Missionaries in their Community (Broadman & Holman, 2006).

316 Networks

Relevant media for today's world

316 Networks is part of the North American Mission Board's strategy for impacting the culture through media and Internet broadband technology. This growing network of churches and ministries use the Internet to make their video and audio content available worldwide. Churches can now gain exposure to a wider audience with their message and impact more lives. "Never before has such a powerful media platform been available to every church, regardless of its size," says Dr. Bob Reccord, president, NAMB.

Video Streaming Church Services

Streaming is a process that does not require download time in order to view. Video streaming allows immediate viewing capability. The viewer has the option to playback church services on demand or view live broadcasts. Through video streaming, seekers who are looking for a church home can experience church services before they actually visit. Members who cannot be physically present can now have access 24-hours-a-day to ministry messages. Streaming video opens a whole new world of possibilities for training church leaders, promoting upcoming sermon series or events, communicating news and sharing ministry resources.

Customized Media Players

316 Networks designs and deploys an interactive customized media player that mirrors the look and feel of the church's website. This allows the viewer to experience a seamless integration between www.316networks.com and the church's website.

Christian Media Content

Fresh content such as articles, videos and MP3 files are available to believers and nonbelievers all over the world through the 316 Networks website. Pastors and ministry leadersÕ names and churches are alphabetically catalogued which helps promote content available for viewing. This collection is fast becoming one of the largest online catalogues of ministry content on the web.

World Class Customer Service

By partnering with 316 Networks, churches can utilize exceptional media management and a variety of effective solutions for delivering content to a worldwide audience. It has the infrastructure and the team in place to provide churches with 24-hour-a-day customer service and technical support.

Enlarge your ministries' impact through this powerful media platform by calling 316 Networks, at 866-356-0792 and by visiting www.316networks.com.

truth of the ages for all ages

William Lane Craig, research professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California, discusses the need for apologetics in the church

Why do we need apologetics?

Apologetics emphasizes the truth content of the Christian faith. We are charged with the task of winning the soul and winning the mind. We must not only convert people spiritually; we must convert them intellectually as well. People may not be convinced that Christianity is the truth. Christians hope that itÕs true, but I don't know if a lot of folks have actually grasped that it is the truth.

How can churches do this more effectively?

First, pastors can model this thinking in the pulpit by addressing issues of the day. When a tsunami sweeps away 300,000 people, for instance, it brings up the problem of innocent suffering. Does the pastor address that question squarely or does he just appeal to blind faith? When a question is raised by our culture, the pastor should show how scripture and reason address it. If pastors show that intellectual engagement is important in the pulpit, people in the pew will think it's important, too.

Also, churches could require membership classes where people are introduced to the church's beliefs more rigorously. The same applies to Sunday school. In addition to a time of fellowship, we should use this time to train people in church history, apologetics, New Testament and Old Testament survey, even Greek.

What about the short supply of people who can teach these things?

We must train people to teach others. One of the qualifications of elders is that they're able to teach sound doctrine and defend Christianity against false doctrine (Titus 1:9). Pastors can develop these leaders by setting aside time to train them. I saw a pastor do this at a small, blue-collar church in Illinois. He trained a small group of ordinary people to study the Bible in depth, write, speak and teach. These folks became amazingly articulate concerning their faith and in turn started small groups teaching others.

How do younger churchgoers fit into all this?

Children and teens need to learn this stuff, too. They're being intellectually assaulted when they move on to high school and college, and we're sending them out armed with rubber swords and plastic armor. We need to start equipping them to defend their faith. This doesn't mean you can't have fun, but we need to be serious about giving these kids reasons for why they should believe Christianity is true. This may not sound seeker sensitive if we're teaching teens deeper things on Wednesday nights when they bring their unchurched friends. But what I've found is this is more seeker sensitive than anything! It's seekers who have these kinds of questions. Usually the person this approach won't appeal to is the Christian who doesn't think he really needs it. But that's the price you have to pay to reach the ones who are thoughtful and who will be the movers and the shakers of the future.

What role should parents play?

Parents should learn these things for themselves and then teach their children. Most parents expect Sunday school teachers and youth leaders to take care of teaching their children. But this kind of teaching begins at home. Kids begin at a very early age asking important questions about life, and we need to be able to answer those questions with solid answers.

William Lane Craig resides in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife, Jan, and their two children. They attend Johnson Ferry Baptist Church. He is the author of Reasonable Faith (Crossway).

For more information on developing an apologetics ministry at your church, visit www.4truth.net.