…with a couple of assertions and see what happens.
There are three kinds of people in this world: “Core”, “Fringe”, and “World”. The ‘core’ includes obvious, genuine, mature believers in Jesus Christ. The ’world’ includes those who are obviously not believers but one day still could be. The ‘fringe’ includes those who either are believers and yet look like the world or are not really believers yet look like believers. Either way, those in the ‘fringe’ look and behave in a very similar way; and, it’s often really hard to tell the difference between a believer and a non-believer because of the way each have been ‘conformed’ by the culture around them.
For the most part, western evangelical local churches…especially ‘large’ churches…are doing a really good job of growing the ‘fringe’ but are not doing much to grow the ‘core’. Therefore, the ‘fringe’ is growing at a faster pace than the ‘core’.
How are we so far?
