WITHERING ON THE VINE

Conservative evangelicals often quote statistics showing a dramatic decline in the liberal gene pool of liberal mainline denominations:

The United Churches of Christ lost 14.8 percent of its members during the 1990s.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was down 11.6 percent. The United Methodist Church fell 6.7 percent and the Episcopal Church another 5.3 percent. But there was nothing earth shattering in the Glenmary Research Center's 2000 data. The Protestant mainline has been fading for a generation.

Unfortunately, only a small percentage of evangelical Christians actually talk about their faith to people outside their church comfort zone. Terry Mattingly puts it well:

Christians have all kinds of excuses for why they don't talk to other

people about faith and forgiveness, heaven and hell, he said. It's easy to

say that modern Americans believe that "soul winning" is rude and

intolerant or that all religions are paths that lead to the same eternal

destination. Truth is, some people don't want to talk with real people who

are facing real problems in the real world, he said.



"It's no harder to talk to people about Jesus today than it ever has

been," he said. "The problem is that we've been frightened away from even

trying. We've become content to wag our finger at the world and tell it

how sorry it is and how good we are, instead of telling people about the

grace of God. We've got to get over that."

This election has created a huge "window of opportunity" for Christians to demonstrate, declare, and defend the truth of God's revelation. Please ask God to give you "divine appointments" to express the truth with respect and compassion.