The growth of a big passive ‘middle’ happens to all churches as they grow larger. This growth in passivity weakens what I will call the “lay ministry dynamic.” That dynamic happens when a significant percentage of Christians engage in lay ministry “behaviors” because they are trained and coached—informally and personally—by the pastors and staff of the church. These lay ministry behaviors result in many new people, including many people without faith, being brought by Christian friends into the services and life of the church community. 

When I first came to New York City in the late 1980s, I realized that I had not come to a normal part of the United States. I remember reading at the time a brief religious comparison of Manhattan and the rest of the country. 30% of Manhattan residents said they had "no religious preference" compared with (at the time) 6% of U.S. residents. 5% of Manhattanites attended any Protestant church at all, compared with 25% of Americans. I realized that New York City was, religiously and culturally, more like secular and very post-Christian Europe. So I began to search for preaching ideas from the great preachers I knew who had labored in London.