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I am deeply interested in the CRCNA's numerical decline and want to know if any research has been done on the relationship between evnagelism and worship.

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I believe there is a DEEP connection, but I have no definite sources to provide (yet). I'd like to see if this thread goes anywhere.

Sally Morgenthaler's "Worship Evangelism" is something of a classic text on this topic - perhaps somewhat outdated, but not as much as it at first seems. Not research, but good stuff. it doesn't directly address your CRCNA decline question of course. Barna has some research going back as far as 2001 at least (see http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/5-barna-update/35-worship-tops-the-list-of-important-church-based-experiences)

What are you thinking or seeing as a connection here?  I'm interested in why the decline prompted you to ask this question about evangelism and worship...

I do believe there is a very strong and significant connection along with Michael Bentley...  Dick Eastman's stories in  "Prophetic Worship" (2011) testifies this to some extent...  that when the "every home for Christ" ministry began 24/7 worship and prayer around the clock  (ok that's redundant ;) along with their outreach, they saw the number of salvations and contacts increase significantly... 

http://www.ehc.org/inside.jsp?sectionid=3&pageid=94 

There is also a very strong correlation between ongoing prayer and evangelism...  Worship and prayer are 2 of our primary callings as believers, and the evangelism flows out of this time in His Presence... the Moravians were a powerful testimony of their mission movement flowing out of a powerful outpouring of the Spirit in 1727 and 24/7 prayer started a few months later and continued for over 100 years, with this small community being the first to send out 100's of non-clergy missionaries around the world - the Moravians were an inspiration to John Wesley, as well as to William Carey, considered the father of modern missions...  another key with the Moravians is they were so in love with Jesus after that outpouring...

Link on story of Moravians

http://www.ctlibrary.com/ch/1982/issue1/118.html 

We have all the "Transformation" testimonies, if you aren't familiar with them, that testifies to how prayer changed communities that were very dark and lost...  here's the link to one of the videos... I think you can find a promo piece on you tube too

http://revivalworks.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idProduct=26 

these are but a few of the many testimonies/resources, although the ones I shared are not crc

The Glory books by Ruth Heflin Ward also share testimonies of when they are worshipping and God lays a specific group to pray for and the next day, they hear that many came to the LORD the previous night...

again, thousands, and probably millions of testimonies... though not all compiled into one nice package at this point for analytical data that I know of.

So curious, if you discover there is a strong connection (which I'm positive of it), then what?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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