By Mark A. Taylor
How much do you care about staying connected with members of Christian churches and churches of Christ? What sense of identity do you have and want with them? What do you want to know about them and from them? How do you want to get this input, and how often?
These are questions we ask in the important survey published this week in the print edition of our magazine. We”re praying that thousands of CHRISTIAN STANDARD readers will complete it. We eagerly seek to hear how you feel about being a part of this fellowship we know as the Restoration Movement.
Why are we asking? Because we want to serve you more effectively, and you know what you want and need better than we do.
Why are we asking? Because a casual glance at what”s happening in our fellowship reveals a hard-to-decipher mix of encouraging and concerning signs.
On the one hand, we”re thrilled with the energy and growth of Christian churches.
“¢ Megachurches are growing, and so are smaller churches.
“¢ Missions work thrives overseas while North American congregations exhibit new concern for helping the unfortunate in their own communities.
“¢ Most of us have quit fighting with Christ-followers in other groups, and many of us are listening to them and working with them and influencing them. Today individuals among us lead multimedia, missions, multisite, and church-planting initiatives well-known outside our fellowship. Our preachers and professors are publishing more widely than ever before.
We are living out the motto of our forefathers, “We are Christians only, not the only Christians.” But some fear we”ve lost sight of the unique plea that created our movement. Many members of most growing Christian churches have little or no idea about that history. They couldn”t explain how their church”s doctrine or mission is different from that of any other Bible-believing congregation in town. They have little sense of the far-flung network of Christian churches around the world.
Meanwhile, ministries created by Christian churches and committed to the Restoration Plea are evaluated by these churches solely on the basis of their features and benefits. Too many ask, “Does it work?” long before they consider historical or theological moorings.
Maybe this overstates or misreads the situation. That”s why we”ve written this survey. Some of the questions are specifically about CHRISTIAN STANDARD, but we have a bigger agenda than just this magazine in mind:
Will our movement retain a unique identity in the coming decades””and do you think it should?
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