How is God’s team (The Body) doing in America?
National Statistics for the U.S.:
- There is not one county in the U.S. where Christianity is on the increase.
- There are a higher percentage of believers in Africa than in Washington & Oregon.
- 50% of Evangelical churches didn’t have a single conversion in the last year.
- 14% of churches are currently stagnant in their growth.
- 2% of churches nationally are growing by conversion growth.
- Eight churches a day close their doors.
- The life statistics of those who go to church are the same as those who do not attend church (i.e. marriage, divorce, addictions & money).
- 12% of Christians give finances on a regular basis, on average Christians give 2% of their income.
Meanwhile:
- The U.S. has the largest Buddhist Temple in the world located in Boulder, CO.
- The U.S. has the world largest Muslim training center in New York.
- The U.S. has the world’s largest Jewish population.
- The U.S. has the eighth largest Hindu population.
- 411 Americans converted to Islam in the last 24 hours.
- 872 people converted to Mormonism in the last 24 hours.
How did we get here?
We do not function as a team. Pastors are increasingly focused on building their own ministries rather than God’s Kingdom. The Church has become about performance rather than substance.
We define success by church attendance rather than changed lives. People in the church do not work together towards a common goal. People spend too much of their energy fighting each other for positions than being a team player.
What is the problem?
For one, we are attacked from many facets to take away our authority:
Parental Authority
Marital Authority
Political Authority
Academic Authority
Ecclesiastical Authority
Leading Cultural Indicators over last 35 years:
Population increased 41%
Gross Domestic Product increased 300%
Social spending increased 500%
And yet…
560% increase in violent crime
400% increase in illegitimate births
400% increase in the divorce rate
300% increase in single-parent homes
200% increase in teenage suicides
75% drop in SAT scores
Since 1963 the following have skyrocketed to an uncontrollable level:
Divorce Rates
Breakup of family units
Acceptance of homosexuality
Teen-age Pregnancies
Murder of inconvenient babies
Crime Rates
. . . what happened that year? Check it out for yourself.
Many have strayed from the “playbook.” We have changed the rules of the game. We have decided we don’t want to listen to the Coach.
Many don’t function as a team. We are not shooting for God’s goals. Rather, we’re concerned with personal agendas and comfort. Those that do play aren’t running the same play at the same time. We do not define success the same way.
Many don’t understand their roles and responsibilities. Pastors have become paid players and the people have become the fans. The church has become about a performance attended 1.6 times a month.
As a result, the team loses. There are great individuals in a church, but they don’t work together. They spend their time playing the wrong opponent: each other. The enemy plays better, so we lose.
Let us look at some more positive Christian Statistics:
32% of the world’s population is considered to be Christian. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (2010)
US – 246,780,000 (79.5% of the Population) Brazil – 175,770,000 (90.2% of the Population) Mexico – 107,780,000 (95% of the Population) Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (2010)
Today in the U.S., about 79.5% of adults (247 million) identify themselves as Christian. In comparison, the next largest religions in America are Judaism and Islam. Combined they represent less than three percent of the United States population. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (2011)
However, there are more than 1500 different Christian faith groups in North America and 40 thousand denominations. ReligiousTolerance.org and take a look at who is DIEING FOR THEIR FAITH! An average of 159,960 Christians worldwide are martyred for their faith per year. Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (2010)
But let’s take a look at a 2014 study on just large church salary statics in 2014 http://leadnet.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2014-Salary-Report_082914_reduced-print1.pdf .
Now, let’s compare our huge salary in America for career pastors and look at how well they did for our country in the same year. Let’s focus on some numbers:
2.5 – Researchers have discovered that characters in cartoons for children are 2.5 times more likely to die than characters in adult dramas. But as long as those characters look cute and make funny noises it must be okay.
$4.20 – The price of ground beef just hit a brand new record high of $4.20 a pound. Exactly 10 years ago, it was just $2.21 a pound. What do you think Clara Peller would say about this?
19.8 percent – This holiday season, nearly 20 percent of all American families are on food stamps. But since the stock market is soaring, most of the rest of the country doesn’t seem to care.
$20 – If you want to “lock down that new man for Christmas”, you can buy a positive pregnancy test on Craigslist for just 20 dollars.
29.0 years – The average age when a man in America first gets married has reached an all-time high of 29.0 years. Thus the need for the fake pregnancy tests.
31.1 percent – An astounding 31.1 percent of all U.S. young adults in the 18 to 34-year-old age bracket are currently living with their parents. But the good news is that demand for tacky basement decor is at an all-time high.
33 percent – According to the Wall Street Journal, close to one-third of all Americans have a file in the FBI’s master criminal database.
34.6 percent – According to the CDC, 34.6 percent of all men in America officially meet the criteria for being obese.
36 – At this point only 36 percent of the U.S. population can name all three branches of government.
43 – The new EPA regulations issued while Barack Obama has been president are 43 times as long as the entire Bible.
45 percent – One survey discovered that 45 percent of all Americans “dread” the Christmas season.
48 percent – Only 48 percent of Americans can immediately come up with $400 in emergency cash without borrowing it or selling something.
50 – An MIT research scientist is warning that if current trends continue 50 percent of all children in America will be autistic by the year 2025.
50 percent – Half of all college graduates in America are still financially dependent on their parents when they are two years out of college.
52 percent – According to a survey that was conducted earlier this year, 52 percent of all Americans cannot even afford the house that they are currently living in right now.
54 percent – For the first time ever, more than half of all U.S. doctors support the legalization of assisted suicide.
57 percent – A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 57 percent of all Americans consider race relations in America to be “bad”. That is the worst number in 20 years.
59 percent – One very disturbing recent poll discovered that 59 percent of Americans are in favor of torturing our prisoners.
60 percent – In the United States today, 60 percent of all bachelor’s degrees are earned by women.
64 percent – It would be a great understatement to say that pornography is popular with men in America. This is true even among men that are supposed to be religious. For example, one survey discovered that 64 percent of all Christian men ages 31 to 49 look at porn at least monthly.
65 percent – One shocking new poll found that 65 percent of Americans believe that the government is “broken”. The shocking part of the survey was that it was only 65 percent.
65 percent – According to a Census Bureau report that was released in December, 65 percent of all children in America are living in a home that receives some form of aid from the federal government.
70 percent – Right now, about 70 percent of all government spending goes toward dependence-creating programs.
78 percent – According to a Pew Research Center study that was released earlier this year, 78 percent of U.S. women “want a spouse with a steady job”. Apparently the other 22 percent want an unemployed bum that stays home all day playing video games.
85 percent – 85 percent of all artificial Christmas trees are now made in China, and there is a rumor that Santa and his elves are considering a permanent move to the Chinese city of Shenzhen.
1979 – The United States has become the nation of the “permanent emergency”. In fact, there has been at least one “state of emergency” in effect in this country since 1979.
7,500 – The worldwide Ebola death toll has surpassed 7,500 for the first time, but most Americans seem to believe that the crisis is over. The truth is that it may just be beginning.
20,000 – Right now McDonald’s has 14,267 locations in the United States, but payday lenders have more than 20,000.
$30,000 – According to the Social Security Administration, 52 percent of all American workers made less than $30,000 last year.
80,000 – Back in 1980, there were only about 3,000 SWAT raids conducted in the United States. But today, there are more than 80,000 SWAT raids per year in this country.
100,000 – It is estimated that there are at least 100,000 underage sex workers in the United States. In case you were wondering, yes that means that we are a very sick nation.
$1,000,000 – We are supposed to be a government “of the people, by the people and for the people”, but at this point more than half the members of Congress are millionaires.
1,400,000 – Thanks in large part to unchecked illegal immigration, there are now 1.4 million members of criminal gangs living in our cities.
2,400,000 – There are currently more than 2.4 million people behind bars in America, and since 1980 the number of people incarcerated in our prisons has quadrupled.
2,500,000 – According to the National Center on Family Homelessness, there are now 2.5 million homeless children in the United States.
4,000,000 – Right now there are more than 4 million adult websites on the Internet, and they get more traffic than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined.
9,700,000 – Almost 10 million more Americans have enrolled in Medicaid since Obamacare first launched.
15,000,000 – More than 15 million Americans have cosmetic procedures done each year, and Christmas is the busiest season of the year for plastic surgeons.
30,000,000 – In America today, more than 30 million Americans are taking antidepressants. And keep in mind that antidepressants are only one class of pharmaceutical drug. Overall, nearly 70 percent of all Americans are currently on at least one prescription drug according to the Mayo Clinic.
$40,000,000 – More than 40 million dollars has been spent just on vacations for Barack Obama and his family since he has been in the White House.
49,000,000 – An astounding 49 million Americans are considered to be facing food insecurity at this point.
110,000,000 – Approximately one-third of the entire population of the United States (110 million people) currently has a sexually transmitted disease according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
156,600,000 – The population of Bangladesh (156,600,000) is actually larger than the population of Russia (143,500,00). But nobody is scared of Bangladesh.
3,000,000,000 – For the first time ever, there are now more than 3 billion people on the Internet around the globe. I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing.
$600,000,000,000 – Americans will spend more than 600 billion dollars this Christmas season. That is an amount of money greater than the entire GDP of Sweden.
$1,200,000,000,000 – Student loan debt has hit a grand total of 1.2 trillion dollars in the United States. That number has grown by about 84 percent just since 2008.
$2,000,000,000,000 – The war in Iraq cost U.S. taxpayers more than 2 trillion dollars, but now a radical jihadist terror organization known as ISIS controls nearly a third of the entire country.
5,000,000,000,000 – There are now 5 trillion little pieces of plastic floating around in the oceans of the world, and lots more plastic is being dumped into our oceans every single day.
$18,031,021,541,347.52 – The current size of the U.S. national debt. It increased by more than a trillion dollars during the fiscal year that ended a few months ago, and it is on pace to approximately double during Obama’s eight years in the White House.
$40,000,000,000,000 – There are five “too big to fail” banks in the United States that each have more than 40 TRILLION dollars worth of exposure to derivatives. This is a “sword of Damocles” that could destroy our financial system and our entire economy at any time. Let’s just hope that it does not happen in 2015.
Now, you might think I blame pastors for all of this. Well you would be right. Politicians don’t have the same expectations in my opinion, although if people went into politics instead of preaching we might actually be winning. Around 56 million people “worship” in a Protestant church each weekend across the United States. And then they go home until the next weekend, many of them without thinking about the Kingdom and most of them without knowing the difference between Kingdom and Church. Very few of them are actually discipling anyone.
What about Bible Statistics?
BIBLE STATISTICS:
Number of books in the Bible: 66
Chapters: 1,189
Verses: 31,101
Words: 783,137
Letters: 3,566,480
Number of promises given in the Bible: 1,260
Commands: 6,468
Predictions: over 8,000
Fulfilled prophecy: 3,268 verses
Unfulfilled prophecy: 3,140
Number of questions: 3,294
Longest name: Mahershalalhashbaz (Isaiah 8:1)
Longest verse: Esther 8:9 (78 words)
Shortest verse: John 11:35 (2 words: “Jesus wept”).
Middle books: Micah and Nahum
Middle chapter: Psalm 117
Shortest chapter (by number of words): Psalm 117 (by number of words)
Longest book: Psalms (150 chapters)
Shortest book (by number of words): 3 John
Longest chapter: Psalm 119 (176 verses)
Number of times the word “God” appears: 3,358
Number of times the word “Lord” appears: 7,736
Number of different authors: 40
Number of languages the Bible has been translated into: over 1,200
OLD TESTAMENT STATISTICS:
Number of books: 39
Chapters: 929
Verses: 23,114
Words: 602,585
Letters: 2,278,100
Middle book: Proverbs
Middle chapter: Job 20
Middle verses: 2 Chronicles 20:17,18
Smallest book: Obadiah
Shortest verse: 1 Chronicles 1:25
Longest verse: Esther 8:9 (78 words)
Longest chapter: Psalms 119
Largest book: Psalms
NEW TESTAMENT STATISTICS:
Number of books: 27
Chapters: 260
Verses: 7,957
Words: 180,552
Letters: 838,380
Middle book: 2 Thessalonians
Middle chapters: Romans 8, 9
Middle verse: Acts 27:17
Smallest book: 3 John
Shortest verse: John 11:35
Longest verse: Revelation 20:4 (68 words)
Longest chapter: Luke 1
Largest book: Luke
A number of verses in the Bible (KJV) contain all but 1 letter of the
alphabet: Ezra 7:21 contains all but the letter j; Joshua 7:24,
1 Kings 1:9, 1 Chronicles 12:40, 2 Chronicles 36:10, Ezekiel 28:13,
Daniel 4:37, and Haggai 1:1 contain all but q; 2 Kings 16:15 and
1 Chronicles 4:10 contain all but z; and Galatians 1:14 contains all
but k.
There are 8,674 different Hebrew words in the Bible, 5,624 different
Greek words, and 12,143 different English words in the King James Version.
Based on the King James Version of the Holy Bible
• Written by Approximately 40 Authors
• Written over a period of 1,600 years
• Written over 40 generations
• Written in three languages: Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic
• Written on three continents: Europe, Asia and Africa
• Written in different locations: wilderness, dungeon, palace, prison, in exile, at home
• Written by men from all occupations: kings, peasants, doctors, fishermen, tax collectors, scholars, etc.
• Written in different times: war, peace, poverty, prosperity, freedom and slavery
• Written in different moods: heights of joy to the depths of despair
• Written in harmonious agreement on a widely diverse range of subjects and doctrines
10 Longest Books in the Bible
• Psalm – 150 chapters, 2,461 verses, 43,743 words
• Jeremiah – 52 chapters, 1,364 verses, 42,659 words
• Ezekiel – 48 chapters, 1,273 verses, 39,407 words
• Genesis – 50 chapters, 1,533 verses, 38,267 words
• Isaiah – 66 chapters, 1,292 verses, 37,044 words
• Numbers – 36 chapters, 1,288 verses, 32,902 words
• Exodus – 40 chapters, 1,213 verses, 32.602 words
• Deuteronomy – 34 chapters, 959 verses, 28,461 words
• 2 Chronicles – 36 chapters, 822 verses, 26,074 words
• Luke – 24 chapters, 1,151 verses, 25,944 words
10 Shortest Books in the Bible
• 3 John – 1 chapter, 14 verses, 299 words
• 2 John – 1 chapter, 13 verses, 303 words
• Philemon – 1 chapter, 25 verses, 445 words
• Jude – 1 chapter, 25 verses, 613 words
• Obadiah – 1 chapter, 21 verses, 670 words
• Titus – 3 chapters, 46 verses, 921 words
• 2 Thessalonians – 3 chapters, 47 verses, 1,042 words
• Haggai – 2 chapters, 38 verses, 1,131 words
• Nahum – 3 chapters, 47 verses, 1,285 words
• Jonah – 4 chapters, 48 verses, 1,321 words