York area by Numbers...

I found this in the Easter Sunday edition of the York Daily Record. It was a small graph showing that the York-Hanover Metropolitan area was one of the fastest growing areas in the northeast. I was so captivated by what it said, that I actually cut it out kept it. I know it is equally dangerous to believe what you read in the newspaper and to talk about statistics, but lets "live dangerously" for a moment.

• Number of people in York-Hanover Metropolitan area- 416,322 (as of July,2006)
• Percentage of people in northeast region who attend church- 41%(Barna Research)
• Number in York-Hanover Metropolitan area who do not attend church-245,630.
• Number of people who move to or are born in area each year-8140.

Just to "keep up" with area growth, local churches would need to add 8140 new members a year! I'm looking for the stats, but I certainly don't think that kind of growth is happening. What about reaching York with church planting? Here goes...

• Number of new small (200 attenders) churches needed to meet growth-40 every year!
• Number of new mega (4000 attenders) churches needed to meet growth-2 every year!
• Number of new small (200 attenders) churches needed provide church for all York residents-1228!
• Number of new Mega (4000 attenders) churches needed-61+

God send us more partners who see both the tragedy and the opportunity of these statistics!

These were his(Jesus) instructions to them: “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields. Luke 10:2 nlt