"As people of faith who are distressed by the pain of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza -- and who long for security and a just peace for both Palestine and Israel -- we can no longer ignore the realities on the ground. We are opposed not to the Jewish people, but to the policies of Israelis' governments, which are becoming ever more extreme," Archbishop Thabo Makgoba wrote.

Sex abuse and corruption scandals that have rocked the evangelical community -- also well-documented by the media -- have played a role in growing disillusionment with the church. It is not just about COVID. The Gospel Coalition research team found that the dechurching phenomenon is far more complex. They drew their conclusions from an in-depth analysis of data drawn from a trio of surveys of 1,000 individuals, with100 data points per person surveyed.

After a day of digging through the New Testament together, what they came up with is: The Church is a group of baptized Believers committed to obeying Jesus, committed to one another, and committed to doing everything they see the church do in Acts 2:37-47. Not bad.

VOL: You are quite critical of Western church structures. Explain?

We've been in the Islamic World and clandestine missions for 12 years now. We were happily serving in Tanzania where I was Dean of a huge cathedral. But then the Lord opened our eyes to the unreached, people with no access to the gospel. Out of 10 missionaries, only ONE goes to the 3 billion unreached. That's 42% of the world's population. Do you see the disparity? And it's worse for missionaries who go to the Islamic World with 2 billion souls; we're only 4%.