Yesterday I headed up a post 'Decline'. Today Skye Jethani, on the Out of Ur blog, writes about the Southern Baptists in the States suffering ongoing decline.
He notes how he asked Willard Dallas about the situation some time ago, and was surprised by his answer:
“I am not discouraged,” he replied, “because I believe that Christ is in charge of his church, with all of its warts, and moles, and hairs. He knows what he is doing and he is marching on.”
Jethani goes on to note: ...the truth is some churches are dying [and perhaps even some denominations] and others reached room temperature years ago. But that doesn’t mean the Church is dying.
He goes on to say that his experience at the Lausanne Conference confirms this. The evidence, both scientific and anecdotal, show the global church is more than surviving...it’s thriving! Some of the growth may be attributed to strategic planning on the part of Western churches and missions agencies in the early 20th century. But what we heard again and again were the unexpected and even miraculous ways in which the church has been planted, germinated, fed, and nurtured.
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