The Master’s Plan Network - International
15 Reasons to Change Our Disciple-Making
North America has 6% of the world’s population… and yet 95% of the full-time Christian workers (pastors, evangelists, teachers, etc.) in the world. With 95% of the world’s full-time Christian workers in the world located in North America – it would be easy to assume that North America would lead the way in Christ-like Disciples of Jesus who are DiscipleMakers of DiscipleMakers! Let’s look at the facts and see the “fruit” of all of these hard working full-time Christian workers:
1. Roughly 90% of all people who pray to receive Christ in our American churches fall away from Christ. We are losing 90% of our new people! The national average for all Christian churches retention rate for new Christians (defined as what percentage of your new believers are still with your church one year later) is about 6%! That means if you are an average church in America for every 100 people that come to Christ through your church this year… only 6 of them will be with you and a part of your ministry one year from now!
2. Less than 2% of all evangelical Christians in America:
- witness weekly to unbelievers
- annually lead someone to Christ
- are being personally discipled to make disciples
- are personally discipling someone else to be a disciplemaker
3. 88% of all evangelical, born-again Christian teens leave the church at age 18 – NEVER to return! We are losing almost 90% of our own kids and grandkids who grew up in our churches, and attended all of our Sunday Schools, camps, retreats, children’s churches and youth groups for 18 years!
4. Only 4% of all born-again Christians who graduate from high school loving Jesus, reading their Bibles, and active in church are still walking with Jesus 4 years after graduating from high school. We are losing 96% of the “best of the best” of our Christian young adults!
5. Today 34% of all Americans claim to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ…and yet, only 4% of teenagers claim to have a personal relationship with Jesus. This is extremely alarming when you consider that 85% of all decisions for Christ in America occur before the age of 14!
6. There appears to be no real statistical difference between Christians and non- Christians in our country when it comes to issues of:
- basic morality
- pre-marital sex
- porn usage
- divorce
- giving to charities
- honesty
- cheating (one of the largest Christian liberal arts colleges in the nation recently discovered that their students cheated more than the students at the nation’s secular colleges!)
- choices of entertainment
- and other areas of ethical and moral behavior
7. Less than 20% of Americans regularly attend church – half of what the pollsters report. Latest research in actual weekly attendance is reporting numbers of only 17.7% of America’s population will be in church on any given Sunday. Only 23-25% of Americans show up at church at least three out of eight Sundays. If trends continue, by the year 2050 it is estimated that the percentage of the U.S. population who attends church will be almost half of what it was in 1990.
8. 90% of all Christians in America will never share their faith with anyone in their life- time!
9. Only 21% will invite anyone to church in a year.
10. Only 2% will invite an unchurched person to the church in a year.
11. Yet - 160 million people in America are open and receptive to the Gospel and ready to accept Christ – if someone would show them how.
12. Only 5% of the Unchurched would be considered antagonistic or hostile toward the church.
13. 95% of all believers in America have NEVER led anybody to Christ!
14. Only 1% of all believers in America ever multiply or reproduce themselves by disciplemaking.
.. and yet our Lord Jesus expects and desires 100% of His followers to be disciplemakers! Jesus told us all to go and make disciples who would obey everything that He told us to do and that would include making disciples. In other words, our present discipling methods and church ministries have created a church culture in America where 99% of the followers of Jesus disobey Him in this fundamental area of obedience…the Great Commission.
15. The number one reason why more Christians don’t actually make disciples is that
nobody ever showed them how…nobody ever discipled them or modeled
disciplemaking for them.
.... and Jesus still weeps…
We have got to do Discipleship and Discipling differently than we are presently doing it in America! Our present methods, ministries, strategies and events are failing miserably to produce true Disciples of Jesus!
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These facts and stats were gathered from various sources including:
• George Barna and the Barna Research Group
• Southern Baptist Life Commission
• Josh McDowell and Campus Crusade for Christ
• Focus on the Family
• Church of the Nazarene Research
• Evangelical Covenant Church study
• The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
