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Statistics!

Over the past few years, we have been treated to the cultural phenomenon that was known as the "Rise of the Nones." A "none" is someone who takes a survey and claims no religious affiliation (i.e. "none of the above"). The church watched the nones rise as a percentage of the population,. Recently, the trend plateaued. The church exhaled - the damages seemed to pause.

Lifeway Reserarch looked at the particular beliefs of the nones. As it turns out, they are not 1-dementional athiests. Instead, a good majority of them are spiritually seeking or curious. Most know there is a creator, they are just lost; not knowing how to find him. 

Here are some good bullet points from the linked article you can access by clicking --> here <--

- Only 36% have no religious belifs. If my math is correct, that means 64%, nearly 2/3, have some sense of religiosity. They are searching.

- Only 20% believe that there is no God. The math on this one is easy. 80% are open to there being a creator God. 

- 78% believe that morality is based on what they, individually, believe is right and wrong. 

So, putting this together, we have a roadmap for evangelizing the nones. Most believe in a creator of some type. If we can show them the historically, scientifically, logically, and most rehtorically sound reasons why the God of the Bible is the true creator, then we are getting somewhere.

If they are repulsed by the Bible because it removes their assumed power to judge right and wrong, then we can argue that if God exists (and most of them agree to some degree on that point), then shouldn't he be superior to all, the creator of all (eternally existent), and therefore in the right position to define right and wrong. 

Unseating the person from the position of authority over morality is the reverse of what the serpent did to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3)

Those are just some approaches that we - those called to fulfill the Great Commission - can use when encountering the nones of society. With prayer, the application of the Word of God, patience, and persistence, we can see the plateau of the none movement turn into a retreat!

Jesus saod tp them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” John 4:34-38