Revival's Golden Key by Ray Comfort Page A

and healing... but because of there not being many leaders, not many stayed with their faith.”
    These statistics of an eighty-four to ninety-seven percent fall-away rate are not confined to crusades.
    Notice where the blame is laid with the Russian professions of faith. They fell away because they needed more leaders. In light of the fact that God “is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 24, KJV), either He wasn’t able to keep them, or His hand wasn’t in their profession of faith in the first place.
    Statistics such as the preceding are very hard to find. What organizing committee is going to shout from the housetops that after a mass of pre-crusade prayer, hun-dreds of thousands of dollars of expenditure, truckloads of follow-up, and the use of a big-name evangelist, initial wonderful results have all but disappeared? Not only would such news be utterly disheartening for all who put so much time and effort into the crusade, but the committee has no reasonable explanation as to why the massive catch has disappeared. The statistics are therefore swept under the hushed carpet of discretion.
    A Southern California newspaper bravely printed the following article in July 1993:
    “Crusades don’t do as much for nonbelievers as some might think,” said Peter Wagner, professor of church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. Three percent to sixteen percent of those who make decisions at crusades end up responsible members of a church, he said. “That’s not counting Christians who recommit their lives.”
    These statistics of an eighty-four to ninety-seven percent fallaway rate are not confined to crusades, but are general throughout local church evangelism. In his book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, Jim Cymbala notes the lack of growth in the Church: “Despite all the Christian broadcasting and high-profile campaigns, the Christian population is not growing in numbers nationally. In fact, church attendance in a given week during 1996 was down to 37 percent of the population, a ten-year low... even though 82 percent of Americans claim to be Christians” (Zondervan, p. 90). The problem is not with the crusades, but with the methods and message of modern evangelism.
    Sadly, these are not isolated cases. The mangled bodies of those who are erroneously called “backsliders” lay strewn on the ground as a disastrous result of a fast-fold ed gospel.
    I received the following letter from a pastor in Florida:
    We have seen... over a thousand led to the Lord on the streets...Not many of these teens are at church. I’ve been analyzing this, and last month, for example, I preached face to face on the streets the whole gospel (death, burial, and resurrection) with a focus on repentance and remission to 155 people. Seventy made commitments to Christ. I know my preaching is correct, but I know I need better follow-up; any recommendations?
    His dilemma was that he was preaching the light of the gospel (Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection) without using the Law to awaken his hearers. Like many others who see this enigma, he thought that his converts needed more follow-up. A respected minister, whose evangelism program has exploded across the world, said that his policy attempts to get at the heart of the fall-away rate of new converts “by placing great stress on the follow-up.” However, to fall into the trap of thinking that follow-up is the answer is like supposing that putting a stillborn child into intensive care will solve the problem.
    Gordon Miller wrote an article in which he addresses the converts who stay in the Church—the “sinning converts” issue. He said,
    A few months ago, a senior minister of a large growing church rang me about a new situation in their church... An increasing number of converts bring their old ways into their Christian lives and do things that shock their leaders. Here, after further reflection,