Anyone who immigrates to the United States and practices a religion other than Christianity must find the number of churches on any given street, all of which claim to be Christian, to be beyond perplexing. In the United States alone, there are 386,000 churches, according to American Church Lists.

While the Congregation is flourishing, in the midst of oppression, in underdeveloped countries, here in America the conventional, neighborhood church no longer positions as the main spot to go as the Christian's essential gathering place. Millions of people claim to be getting closer to God but avoiding traditional churches more and more. What's going on? "...new ways of experiencing and expressing faith, such as through house churches, marketplace ministries, and cyberchurches, are becoming the norm for millions of people," states the Barna Group, a group of researchers from California. https://www.infoodle.com/

Another book by the gathering's organizer, George Barna, entitled Upset, shows that since the turn of the thousand years there have been significant changes happening in how individuals experience and express their confidence. Barna discovered, based on a series of national surveys his company conducted over the past 25 years, that many people are looking for new ways to connect with God and other people who are seeking God. This is due to dissatisfaction with congregational churches, changes in lifestyle, and a growing desire to get closer to God.

The majority of Christian activity in the United States occurred in local churches in the year 2000. Today, in 2005, during a common week, 9% of all grown-ups go to a house church. Even more people, 22 percent, have spiritual encounters in the marketplace, such as with groups of people while they are at work or play or in other typical daily settings. The Web fills in as the establishment for intuitive confidence encounters for more than one out of each and every ten grown-ups. Even though I attend house churches, I have led Bible studies for over a year in a hair salon for high school students and for the past three years in a local coffee shop for college students. I have recently taught Sunday School for a month on Sundays at the local Methodist Church and given two sermons at a Disciples of Christ Church. I was asked to participate in an outreach with a Baptist college in Oregon this morning, and the pastor of the nearby Cowboy Church asked me if I would be interested in teaching a cults class on Thursday that he would open to the entire community. According to Paul's examples in Acts Chapter 16 with Lydia at "First Riverside Church" and the Jailer at "Slammer Assembly of God," these gatherings are nothing less than THE Church in all its fullness, and they were never intended to be a simple add-on to the REAL Church.

The characteristics of this emerging population of people who had to leave Church in order to find more of God in their lives are revealed by the results of several surveys that were carried out over the course of the past year by the Barna Group. Barna believes that the magnitude of this movement into new forms of religious community will change the face of the entire religious community, not just the Chrsitian community, over the course of the next ten to twenty years. He refers to these individuals as "Revolutionaries" because they are determined to "be the Church rather than merely going to church."

Attention pastors and church leaders!

Barna's research reveals that some of the most intriguing characteristics of these Revolutionaries who seek alternative ways to experience and express their faith include:

*The majority of Revolutionary members are Baby Boomers, who are largely to blame for the megachurches that have transformed the Church environment over the past quarter century.

* Adults who participate in marketplace ministry are more than twice as likely to have a biblical worldview and to identify the Bible as the source of life's truth as compared to those who are only affiliated with a congregational church. Additionally, they are three times more likely to assert that there is absolute moral truth.

*Around 66% of all grown-ups took part in a house church go to at whatever week, with the excess portion going to no less than one time per month. That is nearly identical to the attendance profile of individuals whose church home is a congregational church.

*Men and women are equally likely to participate in ministry that is based in the marketplace, but men are slightly more likely to participate in options for house churches.

*Congregational church connections are strongest in the Midwest, while involvement in marketplace ministry is strongest in the southern states. Outside of the Midwest, participation in a house church is just as common.

*Evangelical Christians are the group that is most likely to participate in both a traditional and an alternative form of the Christian church. They are also the group that is most likely to participate in both. In excess of four out of ten fervent grown-ups are engaged with an elective type of chapel consistently.

*It's likely that many parents are involved in both congregational and alternative churches to cater to the various interests of their children and adults.

*In addition to attending a house church, one third of those in the alternative church attend a marketplace ministry, a cyberchurch, or a series of faith-centered events that connect them with God and other Christ-followers.

Interesting, Barna also said that surveys of people's religious activities often make it hard to understand how people act in the church because many people who have other kinds of church experiences aren't sure if they should say they're "attending a church service" to survey interviewers. A portion of these people are so OK with their new, elective types of chapel that they make sure to they go to Chapel. Even though they participate in worship, service, prayer, financial sharing, and discipleship activities through their alternative faith community, others have been so conditioned to think of "Church" as the activities taking place on the campus of a particular denomination that they are more likely to describe themselves as unchurched."

Barna claims that what we are about to go through will be the largest reorganization of the nation's religious community in more than a century.

The Rise of Neo-Churchrism According to recent national research, traditional church participation in activities like worship attendance, Sunday school attendance, prayer, and Bible reading has remained relatively stable over the past two decades, but the Revolutionary faith movement is expanding rapidly.

According to Barna, "a common misconception about revolutionaries is that when they leave a local church, they are disengaging from God." We discovered that while some individuals leave the local church and abandon God completely, a much larger portion of Americans are currently leaving churches precisely because they desire more God in their lives but are unable to obtain what they require from a local church. By putting together a more solid faith experience, they have decided to take their faith seriously. In a manner that recalls the Church described in the Book of Acts, they have chosen to BE the Church rather than attend church.

BIG CHANGES ON THE WAY One of the most eye-opening aspects of the book's research is a description of what the faith community might look like in 20 years. Barna estimates that the local church is currently the primary form of faith experience and expression for approximately two-thirds of the nation's adults, based on survey data and other cultural indicators he has measured for more than two decades. He predicts that alternative forms of faith experience and expression will fill the void left by the local church's current "market share" by 2025. Importantly, Barna's research does not suggest that the majority of people will leave a local church to escape the pressures of church life or simply ignore spirituality. A growing number of church dropouts will be those who leave a local church in order to intentionally increase their focus on faith and to relate to God through different means, despite the fact that there will be millions of people who abandon the entire faith community for the usual reasons, such as having negative experiences in churches, not being interested in spiritual matters, or prioritizing other aspects of their lives.