Thursday, September 13, 2007

Colson on Christians and Demographics

"The Fertility Gap: More Christians on the Way" is a recent piece by conservative Christian pundit Chuck Colson.

Colson is mostly commenting on the effects such demographics will have on the future of politics. But what, also, of the future of the church itself?

Various church demographers have observed the decline of many major denominations - largely because rates of reproduction have declined. I believe this is true in our own LCMS.

If the LCMS, like most conservative Christian bodies, does see an increase in its birth rate (perhaps a big "if", but certainly possible), then we might see numerical growth on a scale that no marketing program had ever dreamed of. Call it "Church Growth - the Old Fashioned Way".

I would be interested to see LCMS demographic information, if anyone has a link....

1 comment:

Dr. Luther in the 21st Century said...

My unscientific demographic study is that LCMS'ers are following the mainliners in their "family planning" wait to have kids in their late thirties or early forties when they can "afford" them and have only one maybe two. Our senior pastor is considered an oddity in that he has four and his sister-in-law's family has six.

My wife and I are more than happy to engage in old fashion church growth and will take all the little blessings with which God is willing to bless us.