How will the future shape up?
"If this development continues, European Christianity will become extinct, like a dinosaur," comments German missions strategist Wolfgang Simson. "Today it is generally overaged, inflexible, steeped in self-absorbed tradition and dead sure it's right. Many say: something should happen - but nothing must change! Is the church in Europe dying of inflexibility?" he asks in his publication Fridayfax 2.0. "The traditional church in Europe is surely in crisis", confirms GEM researcher Ruth Robinson. "Both membership and attendance in mainstream Christian denominations are tumbling. Cathedrals are standing empty, or being transformed into restaurants, nightclubs and flower shops."
Nevertheless a good number of Pentecostal, Evangelical and Charismatic groups are still growing, including many 'immigrant' churches, house churches, youth churches and other new emerging forms of meeting together to worship and celebrate life with Christ. Sprinkled among these various groupings are Christians who have become disillusioned with the church - the 'out-of-church Christians'. At the same time in postmodern Europe there's a rise of spiritual interest and awareness in the realm of new age, neopaganism and other beliefs/practices, expressions of unsatisfied and thirsty hearts. This offers a great opportunity for Christians to share their faith.
Andreas Wolf: "Impact more important than numbers"
"Robinson's 1.1% is by far the most conservative figure I have heard for years," says emRG consultant Andreas Wolf from Germany. "Scott Friderich's ESE would sort of mark the other end of the scale giving 4.2%. Then there's the Operation World figure of about 3.5% that is somewhere in the middle of the two others, where the 2.4 Evangelicals and 1.9 Charismatics overlap to a confessedly unknown degree. My personal assumption is that the more optimistic number is much closer to the truth. I would think there are more committed Christians in the historic Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox churches than Evangelicals tend see, as well as among the 'out-of-church Christians' that often operate under the radar of traditional research. I would not be surprised if the heavenly book counted about 10% instead of 4% or 1%. Also I tend to think that the point is not so much quantity of believers, but quality measured by impact-relevance to the believers' neighborhoods and society." The various research reports are available here:
http://www.emrgnet.eu/wordpress/data/europe-level/ebr-2007
Counting Christians: how, what, why and where?
http://emrgnet.eu/wordpress/method/innovation/articles/abacus
European consultation 'Evangelism in a spiritual age'
http://marcsmessages.typepad.com/mm3/files/ENAbrochure07.pdf