Posted on 11/30/2016 2:41:47 PM PST by SeekAndFind
A Canadian study has found that Mainline Protestant churches that have both modern worship services and teach a literal interpretation of the Bible grow faster.
(Photo: Reuters/John Gress)A parishioner cries as he signs a song of worship in the 7,000-seat Willow Creek Community church during a Sunday service in South Barrington, Illinois, November 20, 2005. Institutions like Willow Creek and Houston's Lakewood Church, each drawing 20,000 or more on a weekend, offer not just a vast, shared attraction but a path that tries to link individuals on a faith-sustaining one-to-one level beyond the crowd, observers and worshipers say.
The Canadian researchers who authored the study, "Theology Matters: Comparing the Traits of Growing and Declining Mainline Protestant Church Attendees and Clergy," surveyed 2,225 churchgoers in Ontario, Canada, and interviewed 29 clergy and 195 congregants. The study will be published in next month's issue of the Review of Religious Research.
"This study was important because it quantified empirically something that evangelical renewalists have been saying for decades — theology matters," said the Rev. Tom Lambrecht, vice president and general manager of Good News Magazine, a United Methodist publication, in an interview with The Christian Post.
Lambrecht, who served for 29 years as a United Methodist minister in Wisconsin, told CP that people who are interested in the things of God "want spiritual substance, not just a feel-good message or the opportunity to engage in community service." The Church, he said, has to to be distinct from and offer more than local civic associations and charities.
A solidly Orthodox Gospel that motivates churches to adapt their worship life and ministries to engage the next generation more effectively will be one where the message remains the same, but the means of delivery look different.
The study also showed that services at growing "churches featured contemporary worship with drums and guitars, while declining churches favoured traditional styles of worship with organ and choir."
"The use of contemporary Christian worship music is an example of that adaptation," Lambrecht said. "It has been around for over 40 years, yet some churches still resist making that adaptation." He added, however, that he's seen examples of churches that have more traditional styles of worship that are also yielding growth.
Pastor John Daffern who leads a Southern Baptist congregation in Columbus, Mississippi, calls himself "an apologist for the modern church."
(Photo: Chris Ellis Photograhpy)Josh Daffern, pastor of MTV Church in Columbus, Mississippi.
"I pastor a church that fits that mold," said Daffern, who leads MTV Church, in a recent interview with CP after he read some of the study's findings.
"We are theologically conservative, according to that study, and yet we are unashamedly modern and we are in a sustained period of growth in our church, and that is in direct contrast to many of the Mainline churches and even some evangelical churches.
"And I think the wisdom of that study is the two parts. There does need to be a modern sense of an expression of the faith while at the same time a conservative, Orthodox view of Christianity," he added.
Daffern said he believes that what church growth comes down to is how man-made controls are applied and both liberals and conservatives do that in their own way.
"For those who would say that we want to liberalize the tenets of Christianity and pick and choose which parts we are comfortable with and which parts we aren't, that's man exerting control over the theology," Daffern said.
"In the same way, a conservative theology yet a traditional approach is still trying to exert man-made control over religion, but it's not over the theology but over the cultural expression," which amounts to an approach which he describes as leaders saying, "Hey, we're going to stick to the Bible but we're going to pretend that it is the 1950s or the 1960s."
Those man-made controls rob the supernatural aspect out of Christian faith, he asserted.
Lead researcher of the study, David Haskell, said in an interview with The Guardian earlier this month that Christians who rely on a fairly literal interpretation of the Bible, "are profoundly convinced of [the] life-saving, life-altering benefits that only their faith can provide, [and] they are motivated by emotions of compassion and concern to recruit family, friends and acquaintances into their faith and into their church."
The study also found that only half of the clergy interviewed who are presiding over declining churches agreed that it was "very important to encourage non-Christians to become Christians," whereas every member of the clergy in a growing church felt that way.
A whopping 93 percent of clergy and 83 percent of worshipers from growing churches believed in the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, compared to 67 percent of worshipers and 56 percent of clergy from declining churches. One hundred percent of clergy and 90 percent of worshipers from growing churches believe God does miracles in response to prayer, whereas only 44 percent of clergy and 80 percent of worshipers from declining churches say so.
"One of the reasons that people are drawn to modern churches is because people don't want to be part of a monument." Daffern asserted. "They want to be part of a movement. One of the greatest beauties of Christianity is that it is living and active."
"In my world, as a Southern Baptist pastor, I tend to deal with churches that have a conservative view of the Bible yet a very traditional mindset, often times it is monument to a bygone era of what they imagine to be the golden age' of Christianity in America."
Such churches are perfectly poised to come back were the 1950s ever to return, he mused.
However, the problem with some more modern churches, he added, is that people sometimes make the modern expression itself an idol of sorts.
"But the key is to be modern enough while not being a mere imitation of everything else around in culture."
They’re always inventing something to add an extra layer of claim on someone’s soul.
It’s a kind of lefty move, actually.
I guess this ultimately ends up with them getting tired of it and then deciding to play Santa Claus, which errs in the OTHER direction.
So, you continue in your denial of the plain meaning of the words of Christ?
Even Luther was appalled by those who denied the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
They’re always inventing something to add an extra layer of claim on someone’s soul.
So the Eastern Orthodox are not Catholics then?
IOW, the Catholic church lays a lot of requirements on its membership that God never does.
No, Christians don’t HAVE TO attend services every Sunday but they do any way. Cause they WANT TO.
When they do it because they want to then the leadership doesn’t feel it has to FORCE Sunday attendance on it’s membership under the threat of hellfire and brimstone.
Well, Catholics have church sanctioned divorce.... aka annulment, so don’t need divorce.
However, I don’t see that the church forbidding divorce, except when people pay the church enough money to pretend the marriage never happened, has caused any decrease in the divorce rate in Catholics.
Seems like Catholic teaching is having precious little influence on the day to day lives of lay Catholics.
Show us where God required us to follow that example.
THAT was the point.
OK, so Jesus doing something is an example that we are to follow, then when are Catholics going to make whips and drive out the bingo games and church bazaars out of their churches?
No, remorse is just feeling bad about it.
Repentance is changing enough to do something about it.
PWND........
Of course WE don't pay for our sins because we CAN"T pay for our sins.
If we could, Jesus didn't need to die.
Yes, suffering is part of the human experience but that is only because it's part of the fall.
It's not because God gave it to us as a means of atonement by which we can pay off our sin against God.
Suffering goes from being a nuisance in the world to being an honor in Christ, because of the super-optimism of Christ which shows that gain always follows suffering in Christ.
I.e. we’re gaining rewards... and that with paradoxical gladness in the face of suffering... not paying off sin.
And it’s because of that dynamic, that recovery groups from abuse fare a lot better in the evangelical sphere than they do in the Roman Catholic sphere — as a tangible, practical consequence. Nobody’s putting lids on the love of Jesus in the evangelical sphere.
Note well that Mike Pence is evangelical. I’d say that he is being set up as the spear head of a movement which will bring dramatic deliverance to those caught in homosexual sin due to ignorance and unbelief. Laugh if you must... but I have the biggest spiritual hunch here.
12but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, SAT DOWN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD,
13waiting from that time onward UNTIL HIS ENEMIES BE MADE A FOOTSTOOL FOR HIS FEET.
14For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. Hebrews 10:12-14 NASB
But we gotta EARRRRRRRN a share in it. It’s only a discount coupon we buy. It ain’t FREEEEEEEE.
/sardonic!
I endure sufferings because I know the Lord is working through them to gain me a victory. Every ache becomes like heaven in a way. Because heaven ached for me, I can gladly ache for heaven.
They really reflect that it is God who bestows grace upon us. There is nothing we can do to earn it.
The game in some places is kind of like trying to sell us sunshine, while calling us to huddle in shadowy rooms.
Amen.
So don’t let any man steal that away, Cloudy.
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