# Storm ![rw-book-cover](https://readwise-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/static/images/default-book-icon-2.dae1dc4d332b.png) ## Metadata - Author: [[Jim Cymbala]] - Full Title: Storm - Category: #books ## Highlights - WARNING NO. 1 – WE’RE NOT AS BIG AS WE THINK To get an accurate count of Bible-believing Christians in America, Dickerson looked at four studies by four different researchers who had four different motivations and used four different methodologies to calculate the number. Their unanimous conclusion was that “the actual number of evangelical Christians is shockingly between 7 to 8.9 percent of the United States population, not 40 percent and certainly not 70 percent.”2 That’s right, only 7 to 8.9 percent of America. The truth is that the number of real believers in Jesus is in a massive decline, and that decline is happening much more rapidly than we have thought. While many boast of America being a “Christian nation,” Dickerson’s researchers say it’s fewer than one out of ten. And it gets worse. He predicts that within thirty years, the number of evangelical Christians will drop to one in every twenty-five Americans! These numbers are a clear warning that the lights are going out. - WARNING NO. 2 – PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION IS RARE Over the last decade, leaders from several denominations have told me that new members, average attendance, baptisms, and giving have all declined in their churches. The largest evangelical denomination sadly reports that new converts as measured by baptisms in 2012 was the lowest since 1948!3 In 2012 the Barna Group found that 46 percent of churchgoers said “their life had not changed at all as a result of churchgoing.”4 On top of that, “three out of five church attenders (61 percent) said they could not remember a significant new insight gained by attending church services.”5 What is even more bothersome is that “one-third of those who have attended a church in the past have never felt God’s presence while in a congregational setting” (emphasis added).6 Think of it: More than half of churchgoers don’t remember even one significant new insight gained by going to God’s house! Something strange is going on here. is obvious the overwhelming majority of our ministries are not producing much fruit in the form of converted, changed lives. And people are not experiencing God in our churches. This would have been unthinkable in the early days of the Christian church as described in the New Testament. This is a critical warning sign that something is terribly wrong