"The aftermath of 9/11 was a growth spurt for evangelicals in America’s largest city"

John Stake wrote about New York’s Post-9/11 Church Boom

The following Sunday, September 16, churches overflowed with distraught visitors. At Redeemer [Presbyterian Church], the ordinary attendance of 2,800 ballooned to 5,400. [Pastor Tim] Keller opened his sermon with a reference to 1 Thessalonians 4:13, where Paul tells us to grieve but not like those without hope. And then he continued by citing John 11:20-53, where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.

“The morning service that Sunday was so full that Tim said, ‘Come back and we’ll do another service right after this one,’” one Redeemer member remembers. “Just like that Redeemer grew another service.”

Churches everywhere in the city saw new faces on September 16. Lots of them. One report shows that 40 percent of the evangelical churches in New York as of December 2010 started since 2000. Only an estimated 3 percent of New York’s residents attend an evangelical church. Still, that figure has tripled since 1990. During one two-month period in the fall of 2009 one new evangelical church opened its doors every Sunday. The aftermath of 9/11 was a growth spurt for evangelicals in America’s largest city.

“For the following year, ministry was just intense—every meeting and service had more emotion and tears in it than usual,” Keller says. “A good number of people started coming to Redeemer after 9/11 and found Christ. Evangelism was fruitful.”

Read the rest. And you can listen to Tim Keller's sermon from the Sunday immediately after the attacks here.