Staggering New Gallup Poll Results Should Be Wake Up Call for Christians
There has been a steady decline in the number of people who claim to have a Christian affiliation for at least a decade now. In fact, it’s not showing any signs of slowing down.
In the United States, 63 percent of the population still claims to be Christian, but that number is down from ten years ago, when 75 percent made that claim.
That being said, it shouldn’t be any great surprise that the number of people who believe the Bible is the actual Word of God is at its lowest ever.
Gallup reports that this has also been on the decline for a decade, with only 20 percent of Americans believing that the Bible is the actual Word of God that should be taken literally.
There has been an increase in the number of Americans who believe, “the Bible is the inspired Word of God, but not everything in it should be taken literally.” That number is up to 49 percent today from the 2017 number of 47 percent.
The fact that the number of Christians is falling should be concerning to every born-again believer. We are commanded by Jesus to “…go therefore and make disciples…” (Matt 28:19-20, ESV), yet Barna reports that only 28 percent of Christians are actively engaged in discipleship.
The primary reason Christians give for not discipling is that they simply don’t feel qualified, or feel they don’t know enough. But the most basic requirement for discipling someone is that the discipler knows more than the one being discipled.
New believers don’t know how to pray, study the Word, or apply it to their lives unless someone shows them how. These days, even the concept of what qualifies as sin is being downplayed. So certainly there does need to be a willingness to invest in someone, but it doesn’t have to be a crazy amount of time.
For example, meeting once a week for maybe an hour is a doable goal for many people. If it needs to be every other week, fine.
The idea is consistency and building a relationship that allows for study, questions, encouraging growth, prayer, and if desired, sharing about what’s going on in each other’s life so there’s a sense of feeling supported when that’s needed.
While there are many things that have changed in discipleship over the past five years, the crisis in discipleship in the church is really showing itself in the steady decline of those claiming to be Christians.
Being willing to disciple others doesn’t mean that the discipler needs to know everything or have all the answers to all of the questions.
It does mean that the discipler has a humble enough heart to admit it when they don’t have the answer, and is willing enough to say, “I’m not sure, let me research that and get back to you,” or “I’m not sure, let’s search that out together so we can both learn and grow.”
