A GENERATION IN TRANSITION

"But to what shall I liken

 

this generation? 

                                                      Matthew 11:16

 

A. Understanding Millenials

 6 Lessons about Millenials

   1) Life Is Better In Disorder, 2) Better Together, 3) Success Is Not Measured In Dollars, 4) Real Deals Are Free, 5) The Life Of Luxury Doesn't Have To Wait, 6) They Have No Intentions Of Waiting For The World To Come To Them...(more)

The Millenial Handbook

This is a ‘snapshot’ guide to the Millennial Generation (or Gen Y), the generation of children born beginning 1978-1982 and graduating high school around 2000. They are the most diverse generation yet, with approximately 38% of 18-24 year-olds being non-white...(more)

B. Young Millenials lossing faith 

Young Millenials lossing faith in recorded numbers

25% young adults choose “unaffiliated” when asked about their religion, but  55% within this group identified with a religious group when they were younger…(more)

Religions among Millenials

Less Religiously Active Than Older Americans, But Fairly Traditional In Other Ways…This is part of a Pew Research Center series of reports exploring the behaviors, values and opinions of the teens and twenty-somethings that make up the Millennial generation....(more)

C. Why I hate religion, but love Jesus

Why I hate religion, but love Jesus 

But if Jesus came to your church, would they actually let him in?..... Religion puts you in bondage while Jesus sets you free…Religion makes you blind, but Jesus makes you see...(more)

Five myths about young adults

Myth 1: Most people lose their faith when they leave high school.      

Myth 2: Dropping out of church is just a natural part of young adults' maturation.

Myth 3: College experiences are the key factor that cause people to drop out.

Myth 4: This generation of young Christians is increasingly "biblically illiterate."

Myth 5: Young people will come back to church like they always do...(more)

D. Juvenilization of American Christianity 

Juvenilization of American Christianity 

How has "juvenilization" of churches led to widespread spiritual immaturity, consumerism, and self-centeredness, popularizing a feel-good faith with neither intergenerational community nor theological literacy? Bergler’s critique further offers constructive suggestions for taming juvenilization...(more)

When are we going to grow up? 

 One mid-1940s teenage girl said, 'We just want to live our own lives. We're not in a hurry to grow up and get all serious and morbid like older people.' Of course, girls who just want to have fun make poor saviors of the world...(more)

TRENDS OF DEMOGRAPHICS AND FAITH OF THE UNITED STATES

A. Land of the Great Eagle...

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The United States is not composed with a single race. It is a nation composed with many peoples, a “melting pot.”

 

Today this country is at the geographic center, the crossroads, of the whole earth, and is like a giant eagle with the two biggest oceans as its two wings.

 

We all have to give thanks to the Lord that we are in the United States, in the center of the inhabited earth for the perfection of the new man that God intends to have in His economy...more (The One New Man , chapter 3, Section 2)

B. Trends in US demography

Demographics of the United States

The American population reached the 200 million mark in 1967, and the 300 million mark on October 17, 2006.Currently, population growth is fastest among minorities as a whole. Hispanic and Latino Americans accounted for almost half (1.4 million) of the national population growth of 2.9 million between July 1, 2005, and July 1, 2006. Immigrants and their U.S.-born descendants are expected to provide most of the U.S. population gains in the decades ahead...(more)

Explaining Why Minority Births Now Outnumber White Births

Minorities—defined as anyone who is not a single-race non-Hispanic white—made up 50.4% of the nation’s population younger than age 1 on July 1, 2011. Part of the explanation for changing birth patterns is that minority populations are younger than whites, so are more likely to be having and raising children. ...(more)

 

Fueled by immigration, Asians are fastest-growing U.S. group

The reason many Asians move to the U.S. include shifts in U.S. immigration policies, changes in their home countries and U.S. labor needs for science, engineering and math graduates. Chinese Americans are the largest Asian immigrant group, with more than 4 million who identified as Chinese, followed by Filipinos, Indians, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese...(more)

C. Trends of Faith 

by Races

Major Faith Shifts Evident Among Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics Since 1991

White adults are six percentage points less likely to have an orthodox view of God today than was the case in 1991. Orthodox views of God are far less common among Hispanics today. In 1991, almost nine out of ten (88%) held such an outlook. Now, barely six out of ten do so (62%). Twenty years ago nearly nine out of ten black adults (88%) held an orthodox perspective on the nature of God. Today the figure is eleven percentage points lower (77%). ...(more)

African-Americans Markedly More Religious Than U.S. Population as a Whole

More than half of African-Americans (53%) report attending religious services at least once a week, more than three-in-four (76%) say they pray on at least a daily basis and nearly nine-in-ten (88%) indicate they are absolutely certain that God exists. On each of these measures, African-Americans stand out as the most religiously committed racial or ethnic group in the nation....(more)

Changing Faiths: Latinos and the Transformation of American 

Religion 

The growth of the Hispanic population is leading to the emergence of Latino-oriented churches across the country. About a third of all Catholics in the U.S. are now Latinos, and the study projects that the Latino share will continue climbing for decades.This demographic reality, combined with the distinctive characteristics of Latino Catholicism, ensures that Latinos will bring about important changes in the nation's largest religious institution....(more)

       

D. Trends of Faith by age group

Children:

New Research Explores the Long-Term Effect of Spiritual Activity among Children and Teens

When it comes to church engagement, those who attended Sunday school or other religious programs as children or as teens were much more likely than those without such experiences to attend church and to have an active faith as adults...(more)

Teenagers:

How Teenagers’ Faith Practices are Changing 

“While there is still much vibrancy to teen spirituality, it seems to be ‘thinning out.’ Teenagers view religious involvement partly as a way to maintain their all-important relationships. Yet perhaps technology such as social networking is reconfiguring teens’ needs for relationships and continual connectivity, diminishing the role of certain spiritual forms of engagement in their lives. Talking to God may be losing out to Facebook.”...(more)

College age:

Millennial Values Survey Report

College Millennials (age 18-24) are considerably more ethically and racially more diverse than the general population.Younger Millennials report significant levels of movement from their religious affiliation of their childhood, mostly toward identifying as religiously unaffiliated...(more)

Young Adult:

Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church

Reason #1 – Churches seem overprotective. 

Reason #2 – Teens’ and twentysomethings’ experience of Christianity is shallow.   

Reason #3 – Churches come across as antagonistic to science. 

Reason #4 – Young Christians’ church experiences related to sexuality are often simplistic, judgmental.  

Reason #5 – They wrestle with the exclusive nature of Christianity. 

Reason #6 – The church feels unfriendly to those who doubt....(more)

 

.PAYING SOME PRICE TO GAIN THE CAUCASIAN PEOPLE

A. Gaining Caucasians in the U. S.

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We must find a way to get into the Caucasian community. We are healthy in our teaching, but we are not healthy in our practice. We must reconsider our situation. I would like to pay some price to gain the Caucasian people. All the Caucasian brothers and sisters need to be burdened and consider so that they may be enabled by the Lord to find a way...more (Fellowship Concerning the Urgent Need of the Vital Groups, chapter 1, Section 2)

B. Church in America marked by decline

The church in America is shrinking.
The number of men, women and children in the pews has dipped to the lowest level since a comprehensive effort to count members began in 1980, according to the 2009 edition of Churches of Christ in the United States.
In the newly released directory, 21st Century Christian identifies 12,629 a cappella Churches of Christ with 1,578,281 adherents nationwide.
Those figures represent 526 fewer churches and 78,436 fewer people in the pews than just six years ago...(more)


U.S. Confidence in Organized Religion at Low Point

Forty-four percent of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in "the church or organized religion" today, just below the low points 45% in 2002 and 46% in 2007. This follows a long-term decline in Americans' confidence in religion since the 1970s...(more)


C. Americans Feel Connected to Jesus

The Barna study, conducted among a random sample of 1,002 U.S. adults, discovered that two out of every three adults (67%) claimed to have a “personal relationship” with Jesus that is currently active and that influences their life...(more)




Faith in flux-Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.

In total, about half of American adults have changed religious affiliation at least once during their lives. Most people who change their religion leave their childhood faith before age 24, and many of those who change religion do so more than once... (more)

Very religious rate higher on “well being” scale

Very religious people rate higher – compared to the moderately religious and nonreligious – on a Gallup “well being” survey. Seventy-three percent of Mormons identified as very religious, compared to 50 percent of Protestants, 46 percent of Muslims and 43 percent of Roman Catholics...(more)

D. What People Experience in Churches

Connecting with God
Experiencing Transformation
Gaining New Insights
Feeling Cared ForHelping the PoorDoes Church Size Matter?Generational ExperiencesDenominational Experiences...(more)

Church Shoppers: What Are They Looking For?

In our small county in North Carolina, with about 50,000 people, there are more than 160 churches. All of them are struggling to stay alive and pay their bills. That struggle means that there is great competition for new members. That struggle in turn makes most new people in the community "church shoppers." ...(more)

E. People tweet more about church than beer 

Americans tweet more about church than beer, and there is a distinct regional divide between the tweets. Church tweets were most common in the Southeast United States, while tweets about beer were most prevalent in the Northeast...(more)

INDEX OF FAQ

Q1.	United States is a country of immigrants.
Q2.	Brief history of Lord's recovery in US.
Q3.	Our current situations on language meetings.
Q4.	Who are typical Americans?
Q5.	New immigrant factor in US and Canada
Q6.	Who are local people in US cities?—city by city
Q7.	How to spread the Lord's testimony to gain local people?
Q8.	How to gain typical Americans? Guideline  - Caucasians gain Caucasian, other language saints pray and support them  - All language saints GOW with VG
Q9.	How to gain typical Americans? -- By raising up next generations — almost all are typical ones  - Young working saints  - College-aged  - Young people  - Children
Q10.	How to gain typical Americans? -- By gaining new immigrant (newly-moved in)  - International and domestical  - Both in college campus and community
Q11.	How to gain typical Americans? -- By focusing on four categories of our contacts: (1) seeker (2) backslidden one (3) gospel friend (4) new ones
Q12.	The origin of Chinese perfecting training in New Jersey.
Q13.	Since the language ability of Chinese scholars is manageable, why not to bring them to English perfecting meeting?
Q14.	Why some saints who can manage English fluently still remain in the Chinese-speaking meeting?

Q15.	The role of Chinese-speaking meeting in the church.

       

Q1. United States is a country of immigrants.

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The Raising Up of the United States for the New Man…This new man is not of any one race; it is of all the races…The United States is not composed with a single race. It is a nation composed with many peoples, a “melting pot”... more (chapter 3, Section 2)

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America today is not a nation of a single race. Rather, it is a nation made up of “refugees” of many races. The first group that came was the Puritans, who paved the way for the founding of a new nation. The rest of us who came later are the “enjoying refugees.”... more (chapter 2, Section 3)

	Race Distribution in USA: each county is colored by its ancestry majority.... more
	Transparency:  Who is coming to America  Immigration may have taken a back seat during the financial crisis, but the issue still needs resolving... more

Q2. Brief history of Lord's recovery in US.

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When the recovery came to the United States in 1962 and the ministry began to function, there were a good number of the Lord’s seekers from the very beginning…During the first ten years from 1962 to 1972, the number of saints increased rapidly. However, after 1972 the rate of increase slowed down very much...more (Chapter 1, Section 6)

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THREE LAYERS OF OBSTACLES TO THE LORD’S RECOVERY IN THE UNITED STATES…from 1962 to 1971. In those years, much of the increase came from my visits to many places and people throughout the United States. Wherever I went, seeking people were caught for the Lord’s recovery… more (Chapter 25, Section 1)

Christians began meeting as the church in Los Angeles in 1962. Since then, the church has been a spiritual home for thousands of believers and.... more

What were the churches like at the time of the Apostles? If we are clear what was in the beginning, then we can also be clear what has happened... more

In this book we want to see how the Lord 

has moved in the past among His children

for the accomplishment of His purpose. 

First, we want to see the history of the 

church in a general way .... more

Q3. Our current situations on language meetings.

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When I began the work in the United States, two-thirds of the saints were Caucasians, and one-third were from other races. That situation was very normal…from 1976 until 1986, it was difficult for us to gain any Caucasian...more (Chapter 7, Section 1)

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We have to admit that language is a problem ...Today the church here cannot be a typical American church; it has to be a local church, a church that includes all the saints in that locality…This indicates that the church must solve the language problem and meet the need of all the saints...more (Chapter 1, Section 6)

Christian Students at UCLA!

2010 Chinese-Speaking Students Perfecting Training

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	Seeking a breakthrough in the gospel in NYC .. more