Posted on 07/26/2013 5:40:33 AM PDT by NYer
Ping!
WELCOME HOME!
Haven’t seen this trend in my Church.
We don’t have that many young people attending.
We could use some, send them over.
Perhaps you should heed the pope's advice: Pope to youth: shake things up, bring Church to the streets
Try knocking on doors and inviting people to your church. It's amazing how many people respond saying that no one had ever invited them before.
Churches that remember they are churches and not some feel-good day-care center have a far better chance of retaining their youth. Those are the type of church which built America. Their values permeated our forefathers' being and sustained a moral nation.
Young people of potential will only commit to something which they feel gives their lives meaning. Regrettably, most American churches have eschewed meaning in favor of becoming liberal indoctrination centers and a gravy train for their clergy.
There are many, many "former-Protestant-turns-Catholic" conversion stories posted on FR that bear these same marks. The majority focus on converts with a poor command of their former faith, who swam the Tiber in their early to mid twenties. Some bear witness to converts already being swayed by "every wind of doctrine" before they converted. Most of these conversion stories fall into a common theme - "fringe member (or non-member) starts out illiterate and ignorant of his/her own confession, then gains publicity and fame on EWTN by making a loud, trumpeted conversion to Catholicism."
Take, for example, the story of James Akin. A convert in his mid-twenties, he was actually a whole lot of things before he became Catholic in his mid-twenties, but one Catholic FReeper hawked James as being a "former Presbyterian".
Another favorite is the story of Rodney Beason, supposedly a former Calvinist, and re-solicited as "a powerful conversion story". A first year college student, he claimed to have "a library full of Calvin, Luther, Warfield, Hodge, Murray, Owen, Machen, etc" and to have "helped plant a local Orthodox Presbyterian Church". A little digging on Google, however, and his conversion story was called into question. In the end, Rodney Beason himself signed up to FR just to provide all with the rest of his "powerful conversion story". Having abandoned the Catholic Church within two years of his 2002 conversion, he wishes Catholics would stop (re)publishing his story.
And then there's the tale of Rob Evans. I know what you're thinking - "who is Rob Evans?" Evans' previous claim to fame was a direct-to-VHS children's series titled The Donut Repair Club, marketed to children in Evangelical households in the early 1990s. When he wasn't entertaining children, Rob was a Presbyterian Pentecostal Baptist multiple-church-splitting spiritual wanderer, who was kicked out of at least one congregation before his conversion to Catholicism. His conversion nicely coincided with EWTN acquiring broadcasting rights to his out-of-production Donut Repair Club.
Finally, there's Fr. Erik J. Richtsteig, billed as a "former Mormon" The problem is, Fr. Richtsteig stopped being Mormon by the time he was just eight years old, meaning he had never held office, never been on a mission, never been through a Temple ceremony. His "Mormon" experience was limited to Sunday attendance (without his mother) "sporadically".
I wonder how many of these Catholic converts actually attended churches that proclaimed the whole council of God? A question I would ask is how many Catholic converts previously went to churches with strong systematic confessions of faith, like the Westminster Confession, and how often were they taught the confession, like in a Sunday School class, and how well did their minister cover all the doctrines in the confession of faith? I would expect some rather weak answers.
-- from the thread Systematic Theology and Catholic Converts
BTTT!
Interesting that young people also vote Democratic in droves. But then, so do Catholics, so I guess it's a good fit.
The tagline.
Here in Brazil, the evangelical churches grew rapidly from the 1950s to the 1990s. The trend towards secularism is noticeable here, and a key reason why 58% of the population considers itself Catholic (down from over 90% in 1950), although the Protestant population appears to have plateaued over the past 15 years.
A great falling away.
I’m sorry, I attend Catholic Mass every week, and I just don’t see it.
The biggest threat to the Church IMO is the near absolute dearth of young people. Not that the Church is doing much to help itself in that regard.
The few who do show up just started getting quizzical “WTH?” looks on their faces when we went to the new Missal.
I have contacts in Latin American countries who tell me the flow is in the opposite direction. Youth in traditionally Catholic countries are flocking to Evangelical churches in droves.
.....Until they decide to get marry and have a family. Then things change.
Somehow the pictures of the kids with the Pope speak loudly.
A friend of mine attended a Christian college where almost all of the students, including her, grew up in non-denominational, evangelical Protestant churches. A few years after graduation, she is the only person in her graduating class who is not Roman Catholic, high Anglican or Lutheran.
...the author’s ‘friend’ apparently has been doing some very thorough surveying over the past several years.
These are the "fruits" of evangelicals who have descended on So. America in droves. However, sometimes, despite their good intentions, these missionary missions backfire.
One day we drove through a small village where I counted three Pentecostal churches on one block. Before the arrival of protestantism, this town was united in its Catholicism. The Catholic parish used to be the center of the community, but now there were multitudes of competing Protestant churches, each promoting its particular brand of evangelicalism: Church of Christ, Presbyterian, non-denominational, Assemblies of God, Mennonite Brethren, and Baptists of every conceivable stripe were all there, scratching around for converts, and reminding their flocks that all the other groups were wrong (especially, of course, the Catholics).
Read the conversion story of Kristine Franklin
The evangelical missionaries ignore scripture:
Thus I aspire to proclaim the gospel not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on another's foundation, but as it is written: "Those who have never been told of him shall see, and those who have never heard of him shall understand."
Romans 15:20-21
See my post #18.
A doctrine and practice within the Church of England emphasizing the Catholic tradition. As the C of E has moved towards more progressive views, a group of "high" Anglicans approached the pope and asked to be received into the Catholic Church. This has resulted in The Anglican Use Rite within the Catholic Church.
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