Posted on 12/16/2004 2:57:47 PM PST by telder1
In a 2003 report on membership, ministers and finances, the research arm of the Presbyterian Church USA said the denomination continues to lose membership. The church has lost 42.4 percent of its membership since 1965. That accumulated loss of more than 1.8 million has resulted in an increase in the number of churches with small congregations. There were 4,171 congregations of fewer than 100 members in 1984, but 5,004 in 2002. The median contributions of those small congregations was $44,678.
Older Americans are dropping out of organized religious activity in significant numbers, a research firm that tracks church trends said. Their limited mobility and declining health are contributing factors, the Barna Research Group said.
"All churches have their ups and downs; we're at the bottom now," said Wray, 88, who has served as a deacon and an elder.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
I have a hard time keeping track--is the PC-USA one of those churches that's been taken over by lib'rals and homos?
That's too bad. The church my wife goes to, a christian church that teaches from the Bible, has been growing by leaps and bounds.
What do you think is the real reason why the elderly no longer attend?
Now everyone knows who and what they are and what they did and continue to do. They are like an old homosexual or lesbian who can't even desire any more and so after years of defiance to speak his/her 'preference' now has no more use for the title as the sex is gone and searches for something else.
Isaiah 45:5-7 I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
It was taken over by Satan and demons who brought in every evil. They are not even a shadow of what they were or anything remotely related to true Presbyterianism even though they usurped the denomination that was once Truth thinking to steal a mere title.
Isaiah 45:8-13 Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it. Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands? Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth? Thus saith the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me. I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded. I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the LORD of hosts.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
I suspect there will be a glut of mainstream denomination church buildings going on sale in a couple of years, in all shapes and sizes:
Episcopal Neo-Gothic
UCC Pseudo-Colonial
PCUSA Greek Revival
Unitarian Multicultural
But they'll be perfect for all those "evangelical fundamentalist" nondenominational churches that are meeting in high school auditoriums and movie theaters and are busting at the seams with new members.
That's the church my wife goes to (yeah, I go every now and then). They started out in a phone booth, and now have taken over half of a dying shopping mall. All in 5 years time. It was pretty amazing to watch.
Being apostate does not help either .
They sure do, it's called death.
Amen !
These very persons who are dropping out now and bemoaning the demise of their churches are the ones who when younger would have it no other way than to go as liberal as possible as fast as possible and denounced those who didn't follow them into it as 'unloving'. This didn't happen overnight or in a corner. They said they believed things they never believed in order to get on the sessions and on the commitees to throw out true doctrine and to get the Word of God as far from themselves and others as possible. They ran off true brothers and sisters in Christ so they could fill up the church temporarily with those to which they could teach whatever they wanted to and the new 'converts' would never know the difference. Now they know the difference.
I know there are still pockets of Reform PCUSA churches, but I have to tell you my recent experience at one near me found me with my mouth open as they proclaimed that god does not discriminate and the Muslims and Buddhists just had a 'different way" .
The church deserves to die , it no longer has a heart for Christ
Funny thing that -- it seems to happen in all Christian denominations. What is this thing called mortality?
Yes, it is a common lie among them that there is such a thing as 'other' faiths and that 'having Christ' is merely a general case of identical creatures (as they deny the actual and real new birth in Jesus Christ) having 'a' god.
Deu 12:30-32 Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
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