Posted on 06/03/2009 5:21:35 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The sudden crush of worshipers packing the small evangelical Shelter Rock Church in Manhasset, N.Y. — a Long Island hamlet of yacht clubs and hedge fund managers — forced the pastor to set up an overflow room with closed-circuit TV and 100 folding chairs, which have been filled for six Sundays straight.
In Seattle, the Mars Hill Church, one of the fastest-growing evangelical churches in the country, grew to 7,000 members this fall, up 1,000 in a year. At the Life Christian Church in West Orange, N.J., prayer requests have doubled — almost all of them aimed at getting or keeping jobs.
Like evangelical churches around the country, the three churches have enjoyed steady growth over the last decade. But since September, pastors nationwide say they have seen such a burst of new interest that they find themselves contending with powerful conflicting emotions — deep empathy and quiet excitement — as they re-encounter an old piece of religious lore:
Bad times are good for evangelical churches.
“It’s a wonderful time, a great evangelistic opportunity for us,” said the Rev. A. R. Bernard, founder and senior pastor of the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, New York’s largest evangelical congregation, where regulars are arriving earlier to get a seat. “When people are shaken to the core, it can open doors.”
Nationwide, congregations large and small are presenting programs of practical advice for people in fiscal straits — from a homegrown series on “Financial Peace” at a Midtown Manhattan church called the Journey, to the “Good Sense” program developed at the 20,000-member Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., and now offered at churches all over the country.
Many ministers have for the moment jettisoned standard sermons on marriage and the Beatitudes to preach instead about the theological meaning of the downturn.
(Excerpt) Read more at wehaitians.com ...
Something to note :
A study last year may lend some credence to the legend. In “Praying for Recession: The Business Cycle and Protestant Religiosity in the United States,” David Beckworth, an assistant professor of economics at Texas State University, looked at long-established trend lines showing the growth of evangelical congregations and the decline of mainline churches and found a more telling detail: During each recession cycle between 1968 and 2004, the rate of growth in evangelical churches jumped by 50 percent. By comparison, mainline Protestant churches continued their decline during recessions, though a bit more slowly.
The little-noticed study began receiving attention from some preachers in September, when the stock market began its free fall. With the swelling attendance they were seeing, and a sense that worldwide calamities come along only once in an evangelist’s lifetime, the study has encouraged some to think big.
“Bad Times Draw Bigger Crowds to Churches”
Bull. The church that I attend was growing long before times got bad. In two years it went from a 5 member home bible study to a church with 350 regular attendees. We are going to multiple services in October. Do the bad times help? Maybe a little but our church was already growing.
But...but...but I thought the number of Christians was SHRINKING?
Glad to hear more people are turning to Christ.
What troubles me about this article is since when is NYT happy about more evangelicals?
On a related note, NPR had an upbeat piece on how the crime rate has gone down in the last year. How to explain this incongruity in a recession? ‘Some’ say (the person in the next cubicle) that more people are moving in with family members and staying home with them instead being out on the street. The perky NPR reader made you kinda wish recessions happened more often!
Posted December 14, 2008
Posted December 14, 2008
Still applicable today.
Thanks for posting it.
Sounds right to me.
Get to know God (December 2008), then get some guns (May 2009).
BE PREPARED in your heart, and in your hand.
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