future of the Reformed faith in the USA and the world

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Calvinbeza

Puritan Board Freshman
The PC(USA) lost about 100 congregation and 100,000 members in a year. Some of these are disssolved congregations with 0 or a few members, one part become member of ECO, the others come to the EPC. The growth of the EPC and ECO can be explained that former PCUSA churches join them.
PCA are experiencing modest growth, or stagnant membership numbers.

Presbyterian Church in Canada had 900,000 members in 1925, now has 120,000 communicant members.

There are RCA and CRC wich are Dutch Reformed experiecind declining membership since 25-30 years.

Can be a Reformed revival?
 
Don't know about PCC, but PC(USA), RCA, and CRC are not reformed. They don't even hold to Sola Scriptura.
 
It seems to me that confessionally reformed churches are on the rise, but I have no hard evidence.
 
We are seeing:

-Growth of Reformed soteriology by evangelicals. For example, Reformed soteriology is growing rapidly in the SBC, which is the context where I first started reforming (and while it was mainly through books, I had some Reformed-influenced ministers and laypersons in the SBC help me). There are also Reformed soteriology influences in charismatic and non-denominational influences. This can often lead to further reformation.
-A strengthening of the Reformed church. While the old mainlines who had lost many of their Reformed distinctives seems to by dying off, I think we are seeing more strengthening and returning to confessional Reformed theology.
 
OPC has gone from about 20,000 members to about 30,000 members in the past thirty years.

I gave birth to five of the additions in that time :)

So hey, we have grown 50%, that's pretty good in thirty years.
 
The RPCNA has also experienced growth in the USA in the past generation. We have increased by 30%, I believe. This follows a huge decline from 1890-1965ish where we lost members every year. The Lord is good. The Lord builds his church.
 
OPC has gone from about 20,000 members to about 30,000 members in the past thirty years.

I gave birth to five of the additions in that time

So hey, we have grown 50%, that's pretty good in thirty years.

And the PCUSA had thirty years ago 3,2 million member now has 1,66 million. So plus 10,000 members to OPC, and minus 1,6 million to PC(USA). Summary minus 1,6 million Reformed people in thirty years
 
The RPCNA has also experienced growth in the USA in the past generation. We have increased by 30%, I believe. This follows a huge decline from 1890-1965ish where we lost members every year. The Lord is good. The Lord builds his church.

The RPCNA experiencing growth, what is great, but it is just a few hundred people, the PCUSA lost every year 100,000 members, 12X more than the size of the RPCNA. It is sad
 
OPC has gone from about 20,000 members to about 30,000 members in the past thirty years.

I gave birth to five of the additions in that time

So hey, we have grown 50%, that's pretty good in thirty years.

And the PCUSA had thirty years ago 3,2 million member now has 1,66 million. So plus 10,000 members to OPC, and minus 1,6 million to PC(USA). Summary minus 1,6 million Reformed people in thirty years

I think a difference is that I don't consider the PC(USA) Reformed. Yes, they like the UCC and other groups have a Reformed heritage, but that means very little in the present. "Evangelicals" I have heard in the PC(USA) are often Arminians, to make matters more confusing. There may be a handful of more faithful churches, but even the most faithful have now succumbed to serious problems like egalitarianism. And that is mild for what else goes on in the PC(USA) and the other six mainline, liberal churches.
 
Gabor:

If your point is simply that over the last few decades the most prominent mainstream Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in the US (you cite Canada as well) lost many members, you are certainly correct.

Insofar as they had, in varying measures, departed, or were departing, from the Reformed faith, this is not arguably a more recent loss to the Reformed faith but reflective (certainly in the case of the PCUSA) of years of departure from the truth. The PCUSA, in other words, because of decades of biblical compromise and doctrinal downgrade, warrant nothing but loss: the departure that is chiefly to be lamented is not the many who've left a church no longer Reformed but a once great Reformed church having left the Reformed faith.

It is the case that churches more committed to the Reformed faith, and more doctrinally sound, have gathered in NAPARC especially. If your observation is that this is but a small number compared to the Reformed and Presbyterian Churches of a century and a half ago (one has to go back a ways to get before the massive doctrinal corruption--this is quite another subject in itself), that is true. Do we need revival in the Churches that have historically claimed to be Reformed according to the Word of God. Indeed we do! Do we need it even in our NAPARC churches? In a different measure (we are doctrinally sounder than those that have departed like the PCUSA), but, yes, we need it too.

Let's not deceive ourselves that the church in the USA, or many other Western(ized) countries, is in good doctrinal and moral health. We are greatly in need of renewal and the work of the Sovereign Spirit to make efficacious the means that He has appointed. It seems to me that as much as anything that we pray for, we should wait upon the Lord for this, crying day and night for our God to reform His church according to His Word by the power of His Spirit.

Peace,
Alan
 
While it is true that many denominations that were entrusted with the Oracles of God have declined over the past century, it is encouraging for me to see a great hunger in today's generation for the Word amongst the Reformed Denominations that do remain. Fueled by the Spirit's use of means like the internet (like the printing press before it), it is clear when I look at our own church that the faith of those who remain often shines extraordinarily bright in comparison to many who must have gone to "Reformed" churches in generations past when one often just went to church because it was expected of you, and the local PCUSA was just as likely a candidate as the Methodist church next door.

In addition, there are so many places around the world where even our little denomination (RPCNA) has been bombarded with requests for help, that we are having a hard time keeping up!

Always keep the endgoal in mind. God does the most remarkable works when things appear most dark and desolate. Look at what He did during the time of the Reformation, during the despair before the Exodus, and even the time of the Crucifixion of our Lord as the fragile Church experienced the apparent loss of their own Messiah.

Perhaps, we His People need to be brought so low that we have no choice but to cry out to God in a way that we haven't had to in a long time. Perhaps, God isn't as real to us as He needs to be. Maybe we need to stop trusting in Earthly Princes. I dare not speak for the Lord in these things, but I do know that He works His Will to His Glory and the Good of the Church.

Let's carry on, following the Marching Orders from the King, and trust that the Battle is His. Keep the long view in mind. The Church is His to prune, and to grow. We may not be the generation that walks out with Moses. We might be the ones making bricks under cruel taskmasters, putting our trust in the Covenant Promises of God, awaiting the return of our Redeemer.
 
Amen, Brother Rom!

The temptation in such difficult times is to seek to gather and perfect the church in some other way(s) than that appointed by Christ and made effectual by the His own presence and Spirit (the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God, WCF 25.3).

Ours, however, is to be faithful and to wait upon the Lord in the means that He has appointed "according to His promise, [to] make them effectual thereunto." To do otherwise is to prove faithless as have so many in the once-great but now-moribund PCUSA (and like denominations).

Peace,
Alan
 
The RPCNA has also experienced growth in the USA in the past generation. We have increased by 30%, I believe. This follows a huge decline from 1890-1965ish where we lost members every year. The Lord is good. The Lord builds his church.

The RPCNA experiencing growth, what is great, but it is just a few hundred people, the PCUSA lost every year 100,000 members, 12X more than the size of the RPCNA. It is sad

They arguably stopped being reformed when that adopted the Confession of 67, so almost 50 years ago. I am not entirely sure why a true reformed person would have stuck around after that.
 
If your point is simply that over the last few decades the most prominent mainstream Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in the US (you cite Canada as well) lost many members, you are certainly correct.

Insofar as they had, in varying measures, departed, or were departing, from the Reformed faith, this is not arguably a more recent loss to the Reformed faith but reflective (certainly in the case of the PCUSA) of years of departure from the truth. The PCUSA, in other words, because of decades of biblical compromise and doctrinal downgrade, warrant nothing but loss: the departure that is chiefly to be lamented is not the many who've left a church no longer Reformed but a once great Reformed church having left the Reformed faith.

Alan

My great sadness is that these deperted churches or members did not, or not all joined true Reformed denominations.
 
They arguably stopped being reformed when that adopted the Confession of 67, so almost 50 years ago. I am not entirely sure why a true reformed person would have stuck around after that.

Trent
PCUSA congreagtions was once faitful to the Reformed faith. It is sad that almost 10,000 churches departed from the faith of their forefathers.
 
I signed up with OPC and couldn't be happier. So much great things I can say. Sound in all areas. I'm also being introduced to other sound sister denominations including PCA, and URC.... I'm very encouraged!
 
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