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Reaching out to a community in decline has relevance for her congregation and gives them renewed energy for the overall mission. Besides Slaughter, the other trainers at the conference will be Michael Frost and Greg Boyd.
Check out these recent church attendance/faith affiliation statistics:
- Less than 20 percent of Americans regularly attend church. (Source: www.churchleaders.com.)
- The percentage of adults not affiliated with any particular faith, 16.1 percent, is more than double the percentage polled for children. (Source: the Pew Research Center 2008 Survey.)
- One in four of those aged 18-29 say they are not affiliated with any religion now. (Source: the Pew Research Center 2008 Survey.)
A closer perusal of studies reveals more:
- About 8 percent of children raised in a religious home will reject that religion as a grown-up.
- The largest group not affiliated with any type of faith is young adults at 25 percent.
- Although 83.9 percent of adults check the "affiliated with a religion" box, not quite 20 percent of them actually act on that affiliation by regularly attending church.
Pretty dismal figures, especially if you're a church leader today.
Ginghamsburg Church in Tipp City is holding its seventh Change the World conference this week to train church leaders on the best ways to get people involved in faith-based activities. Attendance in the past has included anywhere from 300 to 1,000 church leaders. Participants have traveled from across the nation, from Canada, and from as far away as Australia.
"Jesus followers are not waiting for heaven, but are actively rebuilding, restoring and renewing the lives of broken people and the shattered communities of despair," said Ginghamsburg lead pastor Mike Slaughter. "Yes, we are waiting for the return of the King, but it is not a passive waiting."
Conversations at the conference will focus on three areas: equipping churches to do mission outside of their walls to transform their communities; training up young pastors on how to plant or renew dying churches in challenging places; and creating worship experiences to inspire and equip believers to serve the poor, seek the lost and set the oppressed free.
Billups has attended the Change the World Conference for the past three years, and they inspired her to start an urban campus in the Price Hill area of Cincinnati.
Reaching out to a community in decline has relevance for her congregation and gives them renewed energy for the overall mission.
Besides Slaughter, the other trainers at the conference will be Michael Frost and Greg Boyd.
Frost is the founding director of the Tinsley Institute, a mission study center in Sydney, Australia, and author/editor of a dozen popular Christian books, including "The Shaping of Things to Come."
Boyd, a former atheist, is senior pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minn. He has authored/co-authored 18 books, including "Letters From a Skeptic."
The keynotes, breakouts and emphasis in the Change the World conference are all about taking the church into the world to accomplish good, not simply trying to coax the world into the church.
"The world will not believe the gospel until it sees the gospel in action. Ultimately, a church's measure of greatness or effectiveness isn't how many behinds are sitting in our pews but how many in our congregation are out actively serving the mission," Slaughter said.
Credit: By Pamela Dillon, Contributing Writer
Copyright Dayton Newspapers Inc. 2012