Actscelerate.com

I know churches are declining.. but..

01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011 Posts: 24285 **6/19/19 9:13 pm**

I remember reading that the COG and AG are growing.

I know by visiting different churches that many of our churches are headed for extinction just by aging. As I said I hear we are growing, but some say that is over seas not in the USA, which is true, if we are growing?

From an article in the Atlantic by Jonathan Merritt

Many of our nationâ€™s churches can no longer afford to maintain their structuresâ€”6,000 to 10,000 churches die each year in Americaâ€”and that number will likely grow. Though more than 70 percent of our citizens still claim to be Christian, congregational participation is less central to many Americansâ€™ faith than it once was. Most denominations are declining as a share of the overall population, and donations to congregations have been falling for decades. Meanwhile, religiously unaffiliated Americans, nicknamed the â€œnones,â€ are growing as a share of the U.S. population.
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I certainly would not deem to speak for the CoG

Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **6/19/19 9:26 pm**

But in the AG, we close many small churches every year but we have also a very aggressive church planting program in addition we have a very robust Hispanic church program where frankly a lot of our growth is coming from. However, even discounting some of our Hispanic growth the AG is growing. The problem is how we are growing. We are growing as an Evangelical church but not as a Pentecostal church. We dont have to look like the old time country style, long skirts, buns and Holiness styles of the 40's and fifties but there needs to be a return to the Holy Spirit and His manifestations in our churches. I will say that in some places the image of the church of God is that it is a "old time country" church. I know that's not true in so many cases but that is what some characterize it as. Actually, in the A G no one even uses assembly of God in their name so no one knows if a church is or isnt A G unless you dig deep into what the beliefs are etc in the web site somewhere.