Joseph F. Radosevich

Thirty percent of our community is under the age of 18. A pastor from a nearby town told me that his town's only growing population is over 55 and that he would kill for the demographics of our town. The reason he would kill for this demographic is that the normal church growth and church planting strategy involves reaching young families. But that won't work anymore. Why? Because the birthrate in the United States has been falling for the last 30 years. The CDC says that the current birthrate in the US is 1.72. Thirty years ago, the birthrate was 3.25. Falling birthrates affect a lot of things. Public schools will have fewer and fewer students and their funding will fall along with enrollment. Colleges are competing for fewer students every year. And there are fewer young families for churches to reach.  VBS and kids programs cannot be the draw when there are fewer people in the community that is relevant for. So church planting and church revitalization needs to be...

"What's happening to the churches?" People ask me this question all the time. I get asked that question a lot because it's becoming obvious. In the past, it wasn't obvious what was happening in the other churches in a given area, so struggling churches felt like it was just them. Now it is obvious what is happening everywhere. According to Thom Rainer here , between 6,000 and 10,000 churches are dying every year. I've seen similar numbers in other reputable sources. Churches are dying all over the place. The church I pastor is a restart. It was one of those 6,000-10,000 churches except they closed intentionally as a path to reopen 1.5 years later. I've had a window into this because we're living it. And I want others to see what is happening before it is too late. If you want to see and understand the state of churches and the culture, I've got two tips for you: Go and look at the statistics profile of any random Southern Bapti...