Nonstop Decline: Presbyterian Church (USA) Doesn’t Hit Brakes in 2018 (excerpts from Institute on Religion and Democracy)

         PC(USA) Office of the General Assembly (OGA) show the denomination continues to decline, dropping to 1,352,678 active members in 2018. A net 37 percent of members have died, transferred out, or simply vanished in the past decade.                                                                                                                                 The drop of nearly 5 percent is consistent with an accelerating exodus of members since the denomination redefined marriage as between any two persons in 2014.                                                          A summary of statistics reports that 108 churches dissolved in 2018, up from 104 in 2017, a trend that has continued to increase in recent years.                                                                                                             The Louisville, Kentucky-headquartered PC(USA) was formed in 1983 as a merger of The Presbyterian Church in the United States and the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. Its predecessor bodies started declining in the mid-1960s, but the decline accelerated significantly in the 2000s.   At its current rate of shrinkage the PC(USA) will not exist in about 20 years.                   There is direct correlation with their continued liberalization of Biblical teachings and their views on marriage, abortion and Zionism.                                                  The good news is that other U.S.-based Presbyterian denominations have fared better: in 2012,  ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians, was formed by congregations departing the PC(USA), while the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) split from the PC(USA)’s Northern predecessor body in 1981, and has continued to attract congregations from the PC(USA). Separately, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) split from the PC(USA)’s Southern predecessor body in 1973 and has posted 7 percent growth over the past five years.                                                               I know some people say that as Christians we are too judgmental, and narrow minded,  but the fact is there is only one way to the father in heaven and that is through Jesus Christ our savior.   Jesus says in Matthew 7:13-14,  “Enter by the narrow gate;  for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it”                                               We need to be in a Bible preaching and teaching church , such as The Holland Bible Church, follow the Lord in baptism, showing our death to the old self and the resurrection of a new person in Christ.                      Bob W.                “I would rather Stand with God and be  judged by the world          than Stand with the World and be  judged by God”                                                       Where do You Stand?