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."
If you are going to use nonsensical terminology, why should I answer?
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>> “ The people in the Bible did sing and dance and raise their hands up to the Lord in praise.” <<
And the people OF the Bible do it today, and have done so for millennia.
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>> “Methinks this view is going to last until they run into something that renders their hierarchy’s directions utterly implausible.” <<
Coming soon to a world near you! (check listings for time and station)
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What’s wrong with the old classic Protestant hymns? They are the best thing about the Protestants IMHO.
Outside of Revelation, what parts of the NT do you consider “symbolic” rather than literal?
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>> “Well, except for when they don’t” <<
They don’t when they can’t!
One cannot take a cultural idiom literally.
All of Yeshua’s words at the last supper were culturally idiomatic. When he said that he wouldn’t partake of the cup again until we meet for the wedding feast, it was clear that the cup was in no way blood.
There will be no blood present on the sea of glass mingled with fire.
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There is no element of “modern worship” that can be said to take scripture literally.
Modern Worship is by definition “liberated” from the binding ties of the scriptures.
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It makes one wonder what they mean by "believer." Although, I suppose, everyone is a "believer" in something ...
Olsteen seems like a pitchman to me. Willow Creek puts out lots of good Bible studies that our church uses. My church isn’t a mega-church, but is pretty large and growing. It has traditional and modern services, and a really good pastor that preaches from the Bible. And lots of opportunities for Bible studies, etc.
The leadership is very conservative theologically, but most of the people in the pews are probably liberal in their politics.
“Never really understood the whole waving hands in air thing”
1 Timothy 2:8
Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension.
Psalm 63:4
So I will bless You as long as I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.
Psalm 119:48
And I shall lift up my hands to Your commandments, Which I love; And I will meditate on Your statutes.
Psalm 28:2
Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry to You for help, When I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary.
Psalm 141:2
May my prayer be counted as incense before You; The lifting up of my hands as the evening offering.
Psalm 134:2
Lift up your hands to the sanctuary And bless the LORD.
Lamentations 2:19
“Arise, cry aloud in the night At the beginning of the night watches; Pour out your heart like water Before the presence of the Lord; Lift up your hands to Him For the life of your little ones Who are faint because of hunger At the head of every street.”
Lamentations 3:41
We lift up our heart and hands Toward God in heaven;
Perhaps you should cross out that verse in your Bible...
Yeah,, you just jump up and down...hands in the air...because that makes you closer to God and hold the moral ground. And, BTW, how NICE of you to reply to my kind words. Speaks volumes to your “holy” character.
Ummmmmm, yeah. Okay.
“Mainline” must mean something different in Canada. Name one in the US that has a “modern” worship service yet teaches a literal interpretation of the Bible.
I’m not a jumper. Scripture leaves that topic to personal choice.
God does command us to raise our hands. Your call.
I certainly wish you growth in Christ and every blessing.
Can you imagine if Barack Hussein had been by statute the head of the Church of the United States? Out Founding Fathers were wise and prudent in ways I never would have predicted.
How would he differ from, say, Pope Francis?
What is that? Or rather, whose?
I am not going to touch that one!
"Watered-down Christianity" = Protestantism, no requirements at all, none.
However, that doesn't sound very nice. I know Protestants who are charitable, good, worthy followers of Christ and they go to Church every Sunday, no excuses. They aren't "watered down" at all according to their own Protestant lights.
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