Posted on 04/06/2013 3:19:57 PM PDT by NYer
It may not be the reason you think.
The Rev. Stephen Fichter understood just how dominant a role sports has assumed in the culture when a family told him they would be out of town Good Friday to Easter Sunday to attend their child’s volleyball tournament.
“It’s truly sports that has become like the religion” for many people, said Fichter, a researcher and the pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Haworth, N.J.
From youth travel teams to big-time national festivals such as the Final Four, sports have been making increasing inroads in the busy lives of many Americans. Some scholars even trace the evolution of sports from pastime to a form of civil religion to now having become almost a folk religion.
And it is having an impact on religious groups, which report increasing difficulty convincing families that are willing to spend half a day traveling to a 9-year-old’s softball or soccer game to make time for worship services.
Some congregations are meeting the challenge by offering alternative service times and their own sports teams and programs. But many despair of their ability to compete in a culture increasingly consumed by athletics, with its multi-million dollar idols and its own sacred relics. Witness the Babe Ruth jersey that sold last year for $4.4 million.
In a study of 16 declining congregations in the U.S. and Canada, the reason most cited by clergy and members for falling attendance was the secularization of Sunday, with many identifying children’s sports as most responsible. Researcher Stephen McMullin of Acadia Divinity College in Nova Scotia reported the findings in the current issue of the Review of Religious Research.
“(Parents) will make sure Johnny goes to sports, but when it comes to church, I’ve just seen it over and over again, and even in our own congregation, the families that have children in sport will sacrifice church for the sake of their son or daughter’s sports program, so sports is another huge reason why our church is declining,” one pastor said.
There were few Easter Christians, individuals who show up for worship one or two days a year, among the earliest followers of the faith.
Facing penalties “like hanging — that tends to clear the head,” the Rev. Aidan Kavanagh, the late liturgy professor at Yale Divinity School, dryly observed.
Christians in the United States no longer need fear persecution for missing services. Demanding schedules, many of which revolve around youth sports, are the new competition for congregations.
Fichter surveyed 341 Catholics in one congregation who reported attending only on Easter and Christmas. He said he thought many people would cite disagreement with church teachings or negative experiences. But only 7 percent of respondents gave either of those reasons.
More than two-thirds said the reason they attend only twice a year was that they were too busy with other commitments. Sixteen percent admitted they were lazy. Fichter reported the findings at the joint annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the Religious Research Association.
I agree. Of course, some reasons are better than others.
I loved that story about the preacher going out on the lake.
Archey when we all could laugh together and nobody was offended?
Archey Bunker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rBomCeVbl8
Right on, Appy.
Most churches are just club houses, Most no longer have a purpose except to self perpetuate.
ya just proved my point you hockey puck. It isn’t about news or priest or the church orr whatever. You fell for it to. WHAT IS NOT BEING REPORTED IS GAYS HAVE INFILTRATED THE CHURCH TO BRING IT DOWN. It’s in the commie manifesto.
Because the churches are weak and have lost it...sadly. Fhu.com has it...from a Jew too! But so was Jesus.
The Church is Christ's bride (Ephesians 5:29) and has "no spot, wrinkle or blemish" (Ephesians 5:27). Christ stated that the gates of Hell will not prevail against His Church (Matthew 16:18); that is your reassurance that, even if weak, the Church cannot commit error. Individual clergy may commit sins, even popes commit sins because in the Church there are both "weeds and wheat" (Matthew 13:30).
As one poster noted on a different thread, we don't go to church, we go to Mass! Our Lord waits for you each week in the Tabernacle. The person you hurt in absenting yourself, is Christ, not the church.
The body is the temple of the Lord...not the church buildings. The established church is just a representative of the holy spirit, but has indeed failed to bring people into a strong faith. Roy Masters IS doing that job, thank God!
I travel a lot. Being 'alone' at church may on those occasions may be even 'odder' for me.
I go anyway.
It's not about me and my feelings.
It's about Our Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not 'alone' ... He's there, and I'm there to worship Him.
And 'the news' is an impartial, unbiased purveyor of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ... so you can count on everything you see in 'the news' to be utterly and completely reliable both as to facts and as to the context of those facts.
Clean up your act Vatican
And, of course, if 'Vatican' did in fact clean up its act, you can surely count on 'the news' to promptly and completely report on this event with the most glowing praise.
ok one more time. IT’S NOT ABOUT THE @&#^$%!&#@ NEWS! STOP GETTING DERAILED HERE! IT”S ABOUT AN INFILTRATION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH BY THE HOMOSEXUALS! IT IS AN AGENDA ! F@CK THE NEWS!!!
BUT IF YOU THINK IT IS ALL MADE UP THEN YOUR DELUSIONAL TOO.
I have been saying for years on this very forum that the sexual abuse 'crisis' has been almost entirely homosexual in nature. For committing this 'sin', I have been condemned as a 'protector of pedophiles'. That condemnation is a lie, of course, and the homosexual nature of institutional sexual abuse remains.
You condemn 'the news'. Good. Leftist Big Media lies about essentially everything.
Reminding you and others of that fact is not 'getting derailed'. Contrariwise: it is pointing out the obvious. LBM continues to be complicit in covering up homosexual rape. LBM continues to be complicit in ignoring (or condemning) various institutions' efforts to protect themselves against, or to rid themselves of homosexuals.
If you or others 'think' that 'Vatican' has not taken aggressive steps to rid the Church of homosexual abusers, you have only your own attachment to Leftist Big Media to blame.
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