The Needy

It has been more than twenty years ago, but I remember it well. It was a study of the history of evangelism and the periods of growth for the Christian faith.


The author took the simple description of society. It is a well known division of people. There are the 10 % of the people who make things happen. The movers and shakers of society are this group. The CEO's, the Political leaders, the bankers, doctors, educators and entertainers.   We still talk about the top 10 % of society as the major hitters.  Then there is a second level of people.  Maybe 10% or 15% of the population makes up this group.  They are the people who do not make things happen, but they know what is happening and they know some of the people who are making things happen.  These do not sit in the meetings and make the decisions but they know the names of the people who do and they feel like they could call up the top  10% and those movers and shakers would talk with them.

And then there are the rest of us. The people who are barely able to remember our own schedules, just getting by on what we have to do, these are the people on food stamps, the people who collect the garbage, these are the people who clean the hospitals, these are the farmers and the truck drivers. These are the people who get called and can make up juries for Oliver North and O.J. Simpson because they don't pay any attention to the news. These people get talked into mortgages that have balloon clauses, and encouraged to charge over their budget. These are the poor, the lower middle class, the struggling people.

The historical evidence is that every revival and growth period of the church has happened when the preaching focused on this lower 75% of the population.  Paul told the church at Corinth, not many of you are anybody. God takes the poor and the weak and the nobodies to prove His power and to reject the proud, the powerful who think they can make it on their own.  The Reformation was a powerful movement of the peasant whom Martin Luther mobilized. The Great Awakening in the USA was a movement of the people, the settlers, the farmers, the land poor, and the war weary.

This matters because when you look at most of the main line Protestant and Catholic Churches they are made up of the people in the top 25% of the population. At one time there used to be great pride taken in the fact that so many senators and congress people were Presbyterians.  Looking at the churches losing members it is the churches who have no interest and would not welcome those in the 75% group.
The Pentecostal revival of the Christian faith around the world is in third world countries where they are appealing to the masses.

When this history was study in a church study group, the people in that study group looked at the facts, acknowledged them and then said, "Next book." The study and the reality of what was said did not make a lick of difference to how they conducted ministry.  A friend once laughingly told me, "God got along great for 1500 years without the Presbyterian Church, he can probably do it again."  Indeed, He may get the chance.