Replacement

Genesis 8:17 ESV

“… and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”

What a joyful command. One of my favorite movies has Robin Hood, played by Errol Flynn, respond to his king “may I obey all your commands with equal pleasure sire”. The joy of making them, holding them, watching them become adults, worshiping with them, is truly a command that is great and fun to obey, to bring forth those made in the image of God and be pressed by them into growing in my faith, “be fruitful and multiply”. Adam was also commanded to do so, yet for him it was sorrow as he would raise a murderer along side of one that would call upon the lord. He would watch as his sin played out for over 900 years on the earth and his descendants. His sin would multiply and fill the earth until God was forced to destroy it.

Two point three is the magical number. Two point three is what is called the replacement rate. As long as the average number of live births for women in a society is above 2.3 the society will continue to grow. When it falls under that rate it is in decline and should it continue under that rate it will decline to the point of death. That is the brutal reality that we in the west will have to grapple with, if socialism and tyrannical government don’t destroy us first. The United States fertility rate fell to 1.64 and has been on a steady decline since 2014. Some are arguing that it isn’t any issue with the longer life expectancies and technological advancement such a situation will simply be overcome. Since they have no hope of the trend changing, and they don’t want to be chicken little, they find hope in the only alternative that doesn’t involve them sacrificing their latte to have more children.

Looking back to Adam’s plight, I want to point out that having children wasn’t Adam’s problem. He had three named sons and we are told many other sons and daughters. The Earth was filling, but it was filled with men and women devoted to evil. The issue wasn’t the replacement rate of the flesh but a replacement rate of the righteous that caused the destruction of the earth. This is the issue that the church must address. How can we quantify a replacement rate for THE church? As with the replacement rate for humanity, certain activities must happen to provide an environment for people to thrive, so also with the spiritual growth of a church.

Evangelism being the act itself, but that does not always lead to life, how then do we increase our odds of being used by God in the new life of a believer. The rate I want to postulate is also 2.3. The rate that provides the church the greatest opportunity to thrive and grow has to be greater than one for one, as life happens, jobs move, children go off to college. What I am saying is that a church service once a week is going to see a sustained decline in the growth of the Gospel in a community, both IN the church, and in evangelism outside. A minimum of two services and a little more is required, to foster healthy growth in the life of the church, old and new converts alike. The adage twice on Sunday and once in the middle of the week is a wise rule of thumb, but it is just that, both wise and a rule of thumb. The church exploded in the first century not because they were the holiest men and women around, a simple look at the bibles description of the issues in the early churches should convince you of that, but because it was “day by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God” therefore “the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:46-47) The biblical example of fellowship is much greater than the 2.3 and it yielded much greater results than I am proposing, but we have to start somewhere. Is it any wonder that the decline in general morality has coincided with the decline of the number of church services?

Cruce, Dum Spiro, Fido