Leaders Afraid Church of England May be Dead in 20 Years
by Tim Ross, The London Telegraph
YORK, UK – The Church of England will cease to exist in 20 years as the current generation of elderly worshippers dies, Anglican leaders warned yesterday.
The average age of its members is now 61 and by 2020 a “crisis” of “natural wastage” will lead to their numbers falling “through the floor”, the Church’s national assembly was told.
The Church was compared to a company “impeccably” managing itself into failure, during exchanges at the General Synod in York.
The warnings follow an internal report calling for an urgent national recruitment drive to attract more members.
In the past 40 years, the number of adult churchgoers has halved, while the number of children attending regular worship has declined by four fifths. (continued)

When I came across the above article this morning, I was reminded of a breakfast appointment I had with Dr. Robert Ashcroft almost 27 years ago. Ashcroft was an executive in the Assemblies of God and president of two Bible colleges at the time. He was fascinated with Mobile Ministries, a home based group where I served that reached out into juvenile correctional institutions, psychiatric hospitals, general hospitals, etc. and trained church members to do the same. We worked closely with a thriving mega church that was well known around the world and was part of Ashcroft’s oversight responsibilities.

Ashcroft was also one of our advisors, and had just flown in from AOG headquarters in Springfield the day before I received his call requesting that I meet with him immediately. It turned out that he had heard we were planning to plant a church in downtown San Jose. He was furious. Almost glaring at me from across the table where we sat in Little John’s restaurant he made a stunning declaration that went over my head and came back to haunt me years later. “The church is dead!” He added no conditions or qualifications to his statement.

Of course I realized he was speaking of the institutional church. But it was shocking to hear such a declamation from one long considered a church statesman. Working with “successful” churches closely enough to get a good look at what happened behind the scenes tipped me off to the reality that the system had serious problems. Still, I believed that if we could just get the people out of the pews and into the harvest field, the church would be restored.

Only for the past eight years have I realized the truth of Ashcroft’s words. The system of religious obligation built a coffin many years ago, yet its practitioners are still trying to raise the dead with dead methodology or trying to lure others into the coffin that keeps losing its captives. And thank God, it can’t contain true followers of Christ for long anymore than the grave could hold Jesus Christ! Let the dead bury the dead. His sheep hear his voice and follow him into the grace and freedom of his love.

David Fredrickson