According to Brian McWethy, who pastors the year-old Grace Fellowship Church campus in the town, it’s “a small, Friday-night-football kind of town.”
Despite small-town values, few Amboy residents have a personal relationship with Christ. Only one other evangelical church had been in the city when Grace Fellowship arrived in 2010. The town is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. Many believe they can simply earn their salvation by being “good enough.”
Yet the Midwest in 2011 isn’t only small-town America. Ten Midwestern cities rank in the nation’s top 50 in population. For example, the urban-professional community of downtown Cleveland could scarcely be more different than Amboy. Most of the urban professionals have master’s degrees. Most don’t stay in the city for long—either moving to the suburbs or out of state in a few years. And most didn’t grow up in downtown Cleveland.
Still the vast majority doesn’t have a relationship with Christ. Cleveland church planter Alex Ennes suggests that no more than 2 percent of urban professionals in downtown Cleveland are in church twice a month. Ennes compares it to working with an unreached people group.
Midwest population to sbc congregation ratio
Top 5 Least Churched
1. MINNESOTA - 90,797
2. WISCONSIN - 64,997
3. MICHIGAN - 33,682
4. IOWA - 29,489
5. NEBRASKA - 22,458
Top 5 Most Churched
1. MISSOURI - 2.983
2. WEST VIRGINIA - 8,088
3. KANSAS - 9,212
4. ILLINOIS - 12,426
5. SOUTH DAKOTA - 14,007
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, LifeWay Christian Resources (e.g. One SBC church exists for every 90,797 people in Minnesota)
34 Summer 2011 •
onmission.com
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