An Epic Journey

I was doing a little studying this morning on the demographics of some locations Jenni and I have been praying over for a specific place to plant Epic Church.  I ran across these statistics that just hammer home to me the need for new churches in our country!  These statistics are all taken from the Hartford Institute for Religious Research.

Q: How many people go to church each Sunday?
A: For years, the Gallup Research Organization has come up with a consistent figure — 40 percent of all Americans, or roughly 118 million people, who said they attended worship on the previous weekend. Recently, sociologists of religion have questioned that figure, saying Americans tend to exaggerate how often they attend. By actually counting the number of people who showed up at representative sample of churches, two researchers, Kirk Hadaway and Penny Marler found that only 20.4 percent of the population, or half the Gallup figure, attended church each weekend.

Q: What’s the size of U.S. churches?
A: The median church in the U.S. has 75 regular participants in worship on Sunday mornings, according to the National Congregations Study. (Median refers to the church right in the middle, the average number is actually 186 - this number is brought up by the infusion of a few very large churches)

Can you imagine that this Sunday, two days from now, only 2 out of 10 people in your community will be in church?  The American Church is loosing ground and we need new churches in order to reach people who are disconnected from God!  Please be praying for Jenni and I as we are making decisions that will affect the eternal destination of the lives of people we meet and minister to through Epic Church!