Thursday, November 21, 2013

Bible-Minded and Southern fried

I saw a Facebook item yesterday about an article based upon (got all my references in there I hope) a barna survey on America's Most (and least) Bible-Minded cities.

Not to dwell on it too long, but the most Bible-Minded cities (top five) were Knoxville, Tenn.; Shreveport, La.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Birmingham, Ala.; Jackson, Miss.

The least Bible-Minded cities (top five) in the nation were Providence, RI; Albany, N.Y.; Burlington, Vt.; Portland, Maine; Hartford, Conn.

Now, without getting too deep in this, the thing that jumps out the most is the regional declaration. None of these are from west of the Mississippi. The Bible-Minded are all Deep South representatives. The least are all from the Northeastern corridor.

One has to get to No. 18 before one finds a Bible-Minded city, Wichita, Kan., that isn't from the Deep South. One has to get to No. 26, before one gets to the Pacific Coast, Bakersfield, Ca.

The surprises, for me, are I would have thought the Northern California through the Pacific Northwest corridor would have been much higher. Truthfully, I would have thought the Portland to Seattle area would have been right there fighting for the top in the least category. Perhaps Mars Hill's churches in Seattle are succeeded to an even greater extent that I imagined.

Some side results are interesting. Shreveport has the most in attendance in churches that average under 100 persons per Sunday. In other words, Shreveport's little churches, of which there must be a slew, have a slew of folks attending them. Good news travels in small packages, still. In Louisiana, Baton Rouge is 25 and New Orleans (NEW ORLEANS?) is 36th.

In the startling category, Las Vegas has the most conservative churches in America, and it has the most churches with 1,000 or more in attendance. The capital of sin (I imagined) in the country has 64 percent of its church-going folk saying they are conservative, or at least their theology is on the conservative side, and they go to big ol' churches. I will say that conservatives tend to be Caucasian, and the state of Nevada (as I remember it) is mostly Caucasian. There, that's my statistical analysis.

Okay, what are we to make of all this? Glad you asked.

These stats show at least a couple of things, I gather. This won't come as a shock to most, but the Bible Belt still is the Bible Belt. Chattanooga, Tenn., for example, has more folks attending church each week than any city in America, though it is obviously no where near the largest city in terms of population.

In San Francisco, only 3 of 10 persons say they know anything about Christianity. And we're sending missionaries to Africa and Asia (the two area in the world that United Methodism is growing). One could argue that the missionaries would be most needed elsewhere, maybe in San Fran or in New York State, but that's just me.

Bottom line is that it truly doesn't matter, apparently, whether the church has less than 100 or ore than 1,000. What matters, apparently, is well, I'm not sure what matters other than the effort to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

I love what our Bishop, Cynthia Harvey, proclaims. I truly do. No sucking up or anything. I truly do. She says we're about bringing people to Christ, not making new members.

I will literally die to accomplish that. No matter who it angers. No matter what it takes.

Pain-stricken souls, in need of something they can't quite place, hungering for what this Word of God is. Given the second-chance they need but don't even understand is there for them. That's what we offer. That's what they understand in Shreveport. That's what they get in Baton Rouge. Even in New Orleans, that's what they know.

Bible-minded is Word-minded is Jesus-minded. That's what this is all about.

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