Ministers Rate Abortion as 10th most Vital Issue for Church Today

LifeWay has conducted an e-business survey to discover what church ministry leaders thought were the most important issues that churches had to address immediately in today’s society. The survey, over three months, gathered opinions of more than 1,300 evangelical ministry leaders from around the globe, including Europe and the USA. The ministers were asked to address and rank in order the topics that most concerned their churches at present.

The results of the survey have shown that abortion was ranked as high as number ten in the list. LifeWay reported, "It (abortion) continues to be a critical topic for the churches to address."

The web-based survey was entitled ‘The Top 10 Issues Facing Today’s Church’, and did not give any guidance at all as to topics or offer any suggested issues to the church leaders, therefore ensuring that the responses remained independent and genuine.

After a month of gathering initial responses Lifeway, in December 2004 sent out further email invitations to the earlier respondents, and asked them to choose again after considering the current top twenty list compiled from the first round survey.

The report indicates that evangelical church leaders are worrying that abortion is starting to be increasingly viewed as simply another form of birth control, and that more lenient outlooks are being taken in the modern era, even within Christian communities.

According to LifeWay, the Christian leaders wanted the issue to be highlighted once again so that the magnitude of the problem could be seen, and that the biblical response to the issue could be seen clearly. Over the past three decades over 42 million abortions have taken place, and the church ministers see this as a vital issue that needs re-emphasised to the public.

One minister who took part in the survey stated, "The church must speak out with a stronger and unified voice on this horror. Let’s put aside differences and come together to help the formation of consciences that will see abortion for what it is: killing the weakest among us."

The full survey responses can be seen by visiting Life Way Website

The LifeWay website will every week, beginning with the abortion issue, announce a ranked issue in ascending order, from the survey results each Monday until April 11.

After April 11th, once all top ten issues have been announced, LifeWay will, to aid ministries address these issues, release a free special report, which will present all the issues along with relevant scriptures on the issues, resources and other materials and information. The report will be available to download directly from the LifeWay website.