Notice again the greater rate of decline in the last decade than the previous decade. At this rate, only half of religious Americans will belong to a church in 2028-2030.
Notice again the greater rate of decline in the last decade than the previous decade. At this rate, only half of religious Americans will belong to a church in 2028-2030.
Hierarchs and local pastors made a nearly fatal mistake by allowing worship and other church ministries to be categorized as “non-essential”.
It planted a seed of darnel into believers and non-believers alike.
Now reap the whirlwind, suckers!
The question is, does lukewarm church really matter?
Ping.
The pope is a communist.
Franklin Graham is pushing vaccines.
What could go wrong?
I live in the county of Hawaii in the state of Hawaii.
In a nearby town( we don’t have cities here) Waimea, officially postal wise called Kamuela, had at one time the highest church Per capita count in America.
My nearby town has a population of a little over 2,500 people.
There are at least eight churches here, ranging from Catholic, to Buddhist, to Mormon, and beyond.
I don’t go to any of them.
I stream my Aunties church and do bible study with them.
That church is 2,500 miles away.
My point is this,
it is not who does a thing like voting or going to church,
that is important, it is the people that count the church goers, or votes, that count.
My apology to Stalin for butchering his very wise phrase.
Never trust the counters, verify always
Democrat socialists hate God - who they say does not exist.
Pastors, etc. who obeyed evil political orders have lost members to other churches that follow the bible.
I think it is preferable and better to be a faithful Christian rather than a religious one. When you belong to a religion (Catholicism, Lutheranism, etc.) you are required / expected to adhere and accept all its teachings. I have witnessed the ELCA devolve into a homosexual centric institution that rewrites 2000 year old scripture in favor of inbracing sexual deviancy. If that’s religion, then I don’t want or need it. I’ll keep my faith and they can keep their religion.
Note the current pope.
Note Jewish temples run by women.
Note the rise in covid and the cure only available through the state.
Nobody gives a damn about God till they are on their death bed or about to meet their maker!
Leftist’s are successfully destroying all our institutions.
Hard to add to comments except the communist pope also pushes vaccines.
I read to where it mattered - the conservative churches are growing. The mainline “churches” are dying the death and that is good, they no longer preach the gospel.
I left the building long before COVID 19. Actually it left me far behind and was not God honoring much less a true beacon to a lost world.
I do have a home church and meet every Sunday. Just not going into the building to be counted.
They say man never painted a picture of Christ until they lost sight of Him in their hearts and I think it is the same with the buildings we call the church..mostly social groups.
Episcopal Church: “Yeah, we got a diocese that probably won’t reopen when this is over...”
https://juicyecumenism.com/2021/03/22/episcopal-diocese-northern-michigan/
The pruning of the tree.
Our church has been around for over a 100 years and is still in good shape fiscally and financially.
Before the pandemic, my wife and I were a followup team after someone or a couple filled out a card wanting more info on the church.
So we would call or text them to bring over a small gift and church info. We had about a 30-50% success rate of getting people to come back to our church. About 30% of those people stayed as members. That barely kept even with the people leaving due jobs or to be with family and those who passed on.
Many of who didn’t show up again really wanted to watch our services live on tv or streamed online via tv. Our pastor retired and as usual we lost some due to his retirement and gained back some.
My mother and her sisters basically at age 80 just wanted to watch church on tv. Their senior living centers allowed that or had vans to take them to their churches. Those who went to the live church services were the younger ones under 80.
Our interim pastor was either liked or not. We lost a few and gained a few new members.
Our new pastor is great and was gaining back a few, who left and bringing in new people.
When, the pandemic hit and basically our church was shut down. Fortunately a few new couples funded some excellent tv equipment and training. So, now, we have live tv for most services or the services can be streamed. That has worked out well, and we have more contributing members now than when the pandemic hit.
The members are mixed re wanting both live services and streamed TV services .
My wife and I will like both. It is nice on some days to sit at home and watch and participate in the church services in our everyday sweats.
Our choir director has found a new system where the choir Members can stay at home and sing together even though everyone is at home. It was developed by some Stanford people. It is similar to Zoom but geared toward having a choir with members still in their home, singing. So, we get to hear our choir at least twice in a service and to see them in action.
Next month we will start allowing a % of members to come in person to one of the services on an appt. basis.
One possibility is to cancel one of our 3 weekly services re live attendance and only have live tv or streaming for that service.
Live tv or streaming tv is here for now with our church services and even messages from the pastor or whomever.
Some churches stay full - at least at Easter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js8h3NC3b3Q
Written one year ago....very prophetic:
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/03/church-as-a-non-essential-service
“Unless religious leaders reopen the churches, they will appear to value earthly above eternal life.”
There can also be 2 problems.
Some of us are very lazy.
And also there is the issue that everywhere we turn, churches are taking the lib stance.
We are being accused of being racist bigots, by our own churches. I mean, we’re all sinners but church does not have to officially sign on to the false premises of BLM. Why don’t they just ignore it? No, they have to put it on their websites and so on.
As usual ‘news’ guiding opinion rather than reporting fact.
Right when oppressive government keeps people from attending and wokechurches drive real Christians away, let’s poll people to see if they attend church.
Church Membership......I go to church, not a member.
Many people are not members of the church they currently attend and that is for various reasons.
Wrong question to highlight on this survey.