Southern Baptists are planning to plant between 50 and 100 churches in the New York City area over the next five years as part of a larger movement to accommodate the ethnically diverse city and its ever-shifting population.

According to the North American Mission Board, a church planting initiative by the Southern Baptist Convention, 45 churches have been established in New York City over the last decade.

The group cites the ratio of one Southern Baptist congregation for every 6,828 people in North America as the motivation for the initiative. more >>

A new study states that Christianity is the world’s largest religion with just over a third of the global population identifying themselves as Christian.

The study was conducted by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and was titled “Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Christian Population.”

The research was a comprehensive demographic study that looked at over 200 countries and their respective Christian populations. Researchers then compared those rates with rates of Christianity that were recorded nearly a century ago. more >>

The Advent season is about preparing for the birth of Christ. But for many churches, it’s also about drawing newcomers.

Churches often see attendance increase at worship services for the four weeks of Advent and Christmas, but new attendees don’t always stick around. This year, like always, churches are using new initiatives to court the "Chreasters" – people who only show up at church on Christmas and Easter.

Elevation Church in Charlotte, N.C., is preparing for a four-day worship blow-out to attract newcomers this year. They are hosting worship sites at 30 different locations around Charlotte starting on Dec. 21, and going through Christmas Eve. more >>

Zambia is rejoicing after a recent Christian outreach program resulted in thousands embracing and even converting to Christianity.

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) coordinated the program known as My Hope.

It involved at least 60,000 believers who were encouraged to unite friends and family for prayer and ultimately to learn the word of God. more >>

Man in the Mirror, the popular Florida non-profit men-only ministry under the leadership of charismatic evangelist and author Dr. Patrick Morley, announced this week that it will hire 330 ministers in a national effort to form 1,000,000 male disciples by 2015; and 10,000,000 by the end of 2020.

The 20-year-old ministry said it is looking to hire 330 full-time "area directors" who would disciple the men at their locations throughout the United States. The "casting" for the 330 positions opened nationwide Tuesday, and is being organized in cooperation with Young Life, a non-denominational Christian youth ministry, and three evangelical non-profits, Campus Crusade for Christ International, Compass – Finances God's Way, and The Navigators. Candidates across the country were invited to apply via an online address.

Morley is the author of a 1989 book, The Man in the Mirror, which gave birth to the ministry by the same name, founded in 1991. The theologian started by teaching a weekly men's Bible study in Orlando, Fla., 25 years ago. The group has since grown to include more than 5,000 men worldwide. Morley has written a total of 18 books, including the soon-to-be released Man Alive. more >>

Spiritually speaking how do you blow up a church, youth group, campus ministry or Sunday school with the right brand of new-believers-being-added-to-the-kingdom growth? In HTBACU Part 1 we discovered the Nitrogen which is to preach the gospel clearly. In Part 2 we discover the Glycerin which is to multiply the gospel relationally!

In Acts 19:8-10 we read, “Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.”

Here was the situation. Paul did three months worth of “attractional” meetings in the synagogue. As a result a small number of disciples went with him to a local community college nicknamed “The Lecture Hall of Tyrannus” and trained them every day for two years. Many of these schools taught classes in the cool of the day but were open during the hot times of the day. So, most likely, Paul rented the school during the hot part of the day to train his disciples and unleashed them in the cool part of the day to make disciples. As a result of him equipping them to spiritually multiply “all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.” more >>