Your thoughts?
Believe it or not, there are locations in our country where, if a young professional in a demanding field was openly Christian, that person would quickly lose their position and likely have to start over in another field. It’s a fact. So there are very serious decisions of faith before some young professionals these days which would have been unthinkable, really, ones which most still living older people did not have to face. Of course, elsewhere in the world, the decision to be an openly practicing Christian can be in some instances a more weighty matter of actual life or death. But my guess is that most younger professionals just would rather not wind up a target at their workplace, so they keep quiet, don’t go to church, and slowly their faith slowly fades out over time with other things taking its place to some extent. If our way of life currently is good at anything, it’s good at allowing us to not think about or speak about or to take a stand about serious things.
When the pulpit can not afford to be relevant for fear of changing their tax status they fail to realize they have already become irrelevant.
About 20 years ago George Barna, probably the #1 pollster of Christians and all things religious, did a book called “Revolution.” In it, his polls showed that people were dropping out of church, not because they were LESS religious, but because they thought the churches didn’t go deep enough into Christianity and Christian messages.
This was, of course, the beginning of the “megachurch” and the “community church.” (I notice even the venerable “Far Hills Baptist Church” in Dayton, OH, changed its name to “Far Hills Community Church.”) As a rock and roller, I’m NOT opposed to good music in church. But over the last 20 years the “show” has become more important than the message. Bands play the very latest from Christian radio, which is fine if you’re at a night club, but murder if you want people to sing and worship. People cannot sing what they don’t know. Most of the singers are scruffy faced guys with whiny voices (and the girls are whiny, but not scruffy faced). In fact, this is a terrific (and very accurate) parody of what goes on: https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=parody+of+new+megachurches&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-002.
Even Willow Creek, one of the major “megachurches,” found in an internal survey that its own members were deeply disappointed that they weren’t getting more “God” and that the spiritual discussions were superficial and, well, often meaningless.
Barna found that the “Revolutionaries” actually pray more, read the Bible more, but don’t tithe as much and obviously don’t go to church as much.
I believe many people do not go, because they are not saved, truly or they are not believing Gods word regarding getting together with other believers and sincerely worshipping our Creator. Also the excuses given for not attending, are always motivated by pleasing self, putting self ahead of the greater good. We go to church to worship, but also to encourage, pray for and disciple each other. Church is so much more than singing and sermon.
Without reading the article:
BECAUSE THEY ARE LAZY. Period.
Every change to the Catholic mass has been something that makes me less and less want to attend. When I don’t go it is out of laziness or in the way of something else I want to do, bad as that sounds.
But the latest fiasco is to make every prayer a difficult song. It is bad enough I can no longer say the prayers I used to because I hate singing at church, but the songs are so difficult to sing, only the choir is singing them anymore.
What happened to songs like “They will know we are Christians by our Love” which was at least very easy to sing.
I think the Vatican is as filled with traitors as the US government is, and the enemies within are trying to destroy both institutions from within. I honestly do. It is getting harder and harder to believe in mass and want to attend. I want to attend mass but everything they have done the past 25 years puts me off more and more and more.
Oh boo freaking hoo. Many of the families at our Latin Mass parish drive an hour each way...some even an hour and a half. We leave the house at 9, get back in the afternoon depending on how long we stay and chat.
You make it a priority, and then everything else falls into place around it.
The Pastors, Priests, and preachers are now ESPN's taking heads.
The new "God" is the National Football League.
“Merry Christmas and happy Ramadan” from the pulpit did it for me. Churches and the clergy have lost their way.
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>> “ A few hundred years ago, European and American intellectuals began doubting the validity of God as an explanatory mechanism for natural life.” <<
I don’t expect to bump into any “intellectuals” at the Last Trump.
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The cultural center of modern society has shifted from the church to oneself. That’s where it went.
Some churches preach less about God’s glory than what He can do for you. In effect, He becomes a cosmic vending machine designed to cater to the most selfish in today’s society.
In days gone by, people would wear their finest clothes in order to go to church. So you don’t want to wear a suit? That’s fine; for guys in particular, “dressing up” is so painfully simple that I cannot imagine what leads my fellow men to walk into church in torn jeans and flip-flops except selfishness. How can “I” feel most comfortable?
The music in contemporary churches can reach such levels of meaninglessness as to turn a time of worship into a rock concert with no spiritual value whatsoever. Again, it’s all about making “me” feel good all the time.
As other FRiends have mentioned, cliques can be part of churches. This is simply more evidence of selfishness on a different scale - it’s all about “us,” and if you’re not one of them, you can go twiddle your thumbs in the corner.
So from my point of view, the church itself has contributed in a number of ways toward this trend. I feel blessed to have found a church family where that’s not the case.
Another 50 percent said they stopped believing in the particular tenets of the faith they were raised in.
Churches are not following their own hard won doctrine
Money & politics.
It is all churches want to have and talk about.
I missed the part where any of this is “surprising.”
I saw a small church turn into a multi-million dollar money machine. I once knew everyone and their families.
Seminars, gatherings, the faithful opened their homes to visitors.
Two services on Sunday morning, everyone wearing name tags.
They out grew the converted bowling alley church building.
When they bought a Convention Center the city was losing money on They exploded into a mega church. ATM, Starbucks the whole nine yards. They even sold breakfast buffet and lunch in the fellowship hall.
When they started taking donations in wheelbarrows up front so they could see who contributed I left.
I’ve not been in a church since. I pray, I believe.
I won’t support the money changers in the temple though.
Like the woman who washed his feet with her tears, it’s a measure of how much one loves the LORD Jesus Christ.
I prefer evening services to Sunday morning services. I’m attending more than ever before.
To all that are okay with going it alone instead of being part of a church: Revelation shows a multitude worshipping God, not an individual or even a small group. Perhaps now is the time to get used to this idea.
My $0.02.
SDG,
K51
A lot of churches just aren’t worth going to. If I wasn’t serving the Lord at my church and continuously learning to serve Him better I wouldn’t go either. Lots of other places I could go just to socialize.
Protestantism taught me I do NOT need a priest or pastor as an intermediary for my relationship with God.
I eventually found more spirituality in the Rooms of Bill Wilson’s followers.
And there it remains.