This is the Introduction to the Sermon. You will receive the full manuscript sermon in Word format when you purchase.
Title: “The Arithmetic of the Church”
Series: Church as God Intended
Introduction:
[1]Dan Meyer lists some encouraging statistics about the growth of the church around the world in his book, “Witness Essentials”:
- In 1900 Korea had no Protestant church. Today, there are over 7,000 churches in just the city of Seoul, South Korea.
- At the end of the 19th century, the southern portion of Africa was only 3 percent Christian. Today, 63 percent of the population is Christian, while membership in the churches in Africa is increasing by 34,000 people per day.
- In India, 14 million of the 140 million members of the "untouchable" caste have become Christians.
- More people in the Islamic world have come to Christ in the last 25 years than in the entire history of Christian missions.
- In Islamic Indonesia, the percentage of Christians is now so high (around 15 percent) that the Muslim government will no longer print statistics.
- In China, it is estimated that there are now more self-avowed disciples of Jesus than members of the Communist party. Even the most conservative estimates suggest that China will soon have more Christians than any country.
- Across the planet, followers of Jesus are increasing by more than eighty thousand per day.
- 510 new churches form every day.
“The irony is that, except for the Middle East (where Christianity was born) and Europe and America (to whose civilization it gave birth), Christianity is expanding everywhere today.”
For the most part, that is a very encouraging report. According to the Bible, the church should be growing on a regular, consistent basis. And except for rare extraordinary circumstances, church growth is the norm and should be expected.
Today we are going to look into some Bible Arithmetic. And no, we are not going to get into any supposedly secret codes or anything like that. We are just going to examine how church growth works using some very basic math.
[1] Daniel Meyer, Witness Essentials (InterVarsity Press, 2012), pp. 32-33