Coming up at the end of the month, we will be having our week of prayer for North American Missions. This week of prayer coincides with our Annie Armstrong Easter Offering, where 100% of what is given to this offering goes directly to the North American Mission Board (NAMB).
I wanted to share with you why it is so important for us to be praying for and supporting NAMB. According to a study by the Hartford Institute in 2010, there were 338,000 Christian congregations. The US population then was about 309 million, which makes the church to population ratio roughly 1:1000 (one church for every one thousand people).
In the last 10 years, our population has grown by 19 million people. Projecting forward, by 2050, there will be over 400 million people in the United States. In order to maintain that 1:1000 church to population ratio, we will need to start 76,000 new churches.
The good news is that church planting is being emphasized by NAMB. In fact, according to Lifeway Research, there were 4,000 churches that were planted last year. That sounds great! It sounds like we are well on our way to maintaining or even exceeding that 1:1000 ratio. However, those 4,000 new church plants are only part of the story. Sadly, while there were 4,000 new churches started last year, 3,700 closed their doors.
That means, in actuality, we only had a net gain of 300 churches last year. In order to have that net gain of 76,000 churches, we need to be starting about 1,900 churches a year! We are falling woefully behind the curve.
So, what is that we can do about this issue? First, and foremost, we pray. We pray that God will send workers into the harvest. We pray for revival. We pray for established churches to grow and for new churches to be started. We pray for God to move and work in our nation!
Additionally, because of the cooperative program of the Southern Baptist Convention, we can partner with other churches and send out church planters to start new churches all over North America. We partner with our Baptist Association here in St. Louis and support new churches. Also, everything that we give through the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering will go to help the North American Mission Board.
As a church, we have set a goal for $13,000 for Annie Armstrong. Would you join me in praying about what God would have us give so that we can meet this goal?
The need is immense. We need more churches in North America. Let’s all prayerfully support NAMB as they lead the way in helping us reach the lost in our neighborhoods.
In Him,
Pastor Zach