Reaching the Heart of America
What would Gospel Saturation look like in a region? Here is one view “by the numbers”:
- One church for every 50,000 people would have “presence”.
- One church for very 5,000 people would mean “influence”.
- One church for every 500 people would achieve “saturation”.
This past week in St. Louis I had the opportunity to be part of a group of leaders from the Midwest praying and talking about gospel saturation in our region. Our region, as defined by our denomination, includes 13 states totaling over 71 million people. Applying current demographics to that number means that in our region over 60 million people are not significantly connected to a gospel-preaching church. In terms of our Midwest efforts, there is 1 PCA church for every 300,000 people, that number being over 6 times larger than the number needed for mere “presence”. (By comparison, in the PCA Northeast 1 church exists per 175,000, while in the PCA South there is 1 church per 74,000.) While it is true that we don’t assume that the PCA is the only “gospel preaching” option available, the level of need for people to be connected to a gospel work is staggering.
Our theme for our time together was Philippians 1:27–28, "Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents." It was truly an encouragement to stand in one spirit with these sisters and brothers from our region, to pray for the faith of the gospel, and to strategize and imagine people drawing draughts of Living Water and finding the very thing that their souls are longing for. We recognize that though enemies and obstacles are real, we are not frightened because surely He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world (I John 4:4).
So let us be earnest in prayer and energetic in work here in our little corner of the Midwest, Grand Rapids. We have such a great gift to offer in the face of such great need. You are so generous already with your time, your talents, your finances, your struggles and pain. May the Holy Spirit increase our ability to steward all things well. And, may we not be frightened by our enemies for we do know that our God does all things well. My prayer is that this Sunday we will be encouraged as we encounter with Asaph in Psalm 73 the overwhelming sufficiency and power of a life with God.