Out of every eleven people how many do you suspect attend an evangelical church in the United States each Sunday? The number is one. This hard fact is not based upon a survey, but on the study performed by the American Church Research Project administered by author David Olson. Our own C&MA is part of this study which helps us to identify with the burden and solutions revealed in the new book,
The American Church in Crisis. 
 
There are 52 million more people alive in the USA today as compared to 1990. This happens to also be the number of people who attend church each week including Catholic and mainline. There stands before us a great opportunity. Yes, growing our existing churches is important, but church planting is absolutely critical to making significant gains in reaching people with the great news of Jesus Christ. 
 
The pattern of growth in new churches stays in positive numbers for the first ten years of their existence. Nationwide, after a church reaches birthday number eleven the growth is less than 1% on average. Yes, we need church health and yes, we want to plant churches out of healthy churches—but yes too, we must plant aggressively. To keep up with the population growth alone, 2,900 additional churches need to be started each year. 
 
The American Church in Crisis does a lot more than declare the state of the church, it offers solutions. You see, extinction occurs most often when a species faces a crisis or change in its environment and is unable to adapt. Our churches must bear fruit, both by inward change in the lives of believers and in outward change through conversion, community transformation, and global impact. 
 
Pick up copies of The American Church in Crisis for yourself and your leadership team. 
 
—Bill Malick, Church Multiplication Ministries