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."
Then that disqualifies the *Catholic* interpretation as well.
Jesus said *I AM the vine*, I AM the door*, I AM the bread*.
He didn’t say He was speaking in symbols. He used the word *AM*.
So now you have to decide whether or not Jesus is made out of wood, flour, or plant matter.
Can’t even get the Pope to agree with “Catholic” teaching.
Then which version of the Catholic church is the ONE TRUE Church?
The Roman church or the Eastern Orthodox?
And where in scripture does God demand lockstep adherence to church doctrine. or tell us that lockstep agreement to church teaching is an indicator that that teaching is from God?
Did you EVER read Romans 14?
God allows for *disputable matters*. Why doesn't the Catholic church?
Details, details.......
call no man father
Was it the current pope, or another, who said Christians and Muslims worship the same God? What a ridiculous statement.
The same can easily be said of Catholicism, as not one of the early saints for the first 500-600 years upheld Roman Catholic theology as it exists today. Augustine, for example, was the true origin--at least secondary to the Bible--of Calvinist theology.
What guarantees do you have that Roman Catholic theology, as it exists today, is the absolute truth? It is not supported by the genuine tradition of the church throughout the centuries, so that leaves only the Holy Spirit and the innovations of the Magisterium that came hundreds upon hundreds of years later. In fact, the theology of Rome today is even different from what it was 50 or 60 years ago. Today the Pope is a heretic and will burn in hell when he dies, by Roman Catholic standards of less than a century ago. Then again, so was John Paul, as a result of his hob nobbing with Muslims and other infidels as equal believers.
Not only the Pope, but also the Catholic Catechism.
I guess I should have known that, but it has been ages since I left the Catholic Church, never to return, I might add.
It's strange that when I left the Catholic Church, my Catholic family essentially had a funeral for me, because they were spiritually dead. Later, two of my sisters got saved, and became Godly women. Needless to say, they left the Catholic Church too. Thank God for that.
Which further evidence of cognitive dissonance and or blindness in response to my m -a -n -y , m -a -n -y , m -a -n -y reproofs by the grace of God of your vain assertions further affirms that your attempted responses honestly belong to lowest level of wannbe Catholic apologetics, and hardly warrants further reproof, including to today's bombast. Bye again.
Yes, indeed it is!
Ya, So?
He also believes in AGW.
None of this was Ex Cathedra, so its only embarrassing.
We’ve had many flawed Popes in our history, yet the doctrine remains unstained.
I’m sure all those who share your beliefs are perfect?
cognitive dissonance = reading this and believe Christ is not referring to His Body an Blood.
Beginning with John 6:51:
“The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.
The The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say unto you: except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.
He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood, hath everlasting life; and I will raise him up in the last day.
For my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed.
He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.
As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eats me the same also shall live by me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eats this bread shall live forever.”
“Many therefore of his disciples, hearing it, said: This saying is hard,’ and who can hear it?
But Jesus, knowing in himself, that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: Doth this scandalize you?
If then you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
It is the spirit that quickens: the flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life.
But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning, who they were that did not believe, and who he was, that, would betray him
And he said: Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father.
After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with him.
Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away?
But John 6 is NOT about the Last Supper.
Remember, you shouldn’t be attempting to drag in other references to try to disguise Christ’s plain meaning.
It is self-evident that *fruit of the vine* is WINE, NOT blood.
Your doctrine changes with the wind.
It's hardly *unstained* unless you have some really ingenious way of explaining the discrepancy of major points of doctrine between Rome and the EO, which you keep ignoring.
Actually, it’s the catechism.
Like a typical deceiver, you don’t include verse 29 where JESUS says what is in the cup is wine, and he won’t drink that again until in the Kingdom. Deceivers would have Christians believe JESUS will drink blood in the kingdom!
Gee, G Larry, I simply stated how it "seemed" to me and everything you and others on this thread assert - as well as other threads over the years - have yet to dispute that my "understanding" is correct.
Heck, I remember quoting verbatim Ephesians 2:8,9 to a Catholic priest family friend and he said, “That sounds Protestant to me.”! I’m not so sure even a priest could “interpret” what he may not even have heard before.
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