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."
6. Catholics must observe the MEATLESS Fridays during Lent and on Ash Wednesday Protestants don't have to do this. <<
I've reposted the original question for context.
>>Perhaps the burden is upon Catholicism to show where this has to be done.<<
That would be making non-Catholics less-sinners and Catholics greater sinners. Is that your idea? Lol. My, my SOMEone has an inflated idea about himself, perhaps.
If you knew ANYTHING about the Church you would know *that their Judaic tradition led the way for their Apostolic Tradition. **You would KNOW why Mary is so important.
Well, never mind,you do have your own bias, PERHAPS. PERHAPS the LOW ROAD, the easier path, is all that that non-Catholics can do. PERHAPS they simply can't make the higher grade, can't cut the less difficult stuff.
Your answer has nothing to do with the original post which questioned the necessity of having to observe what was posted in #6 above.
Not sure what this has to do with Mary. But we can discuss that on another thread.
The sabbath rest for Christians spiritualizes into an attitude that, for maximum benefit, is taken every second of every minute of every hour of every day. One rests in the spirit of Christ.
Ritual observations are good as reminders (and as convenient times to practice this kind of spiritual resting) but for the Christian, every moment is ideally a sabbath in Christ. That is not worklessness, but performing His works. He healed on the Sabbath. Everything a Christian does should at least attempt to be a kind of healing, even if it is the surgery that leads up to it.
“Not even to follow the 40 Days of Fasting that Jesus did in the desert?
It’s in your Bible. Why isn’t it recognized and followed by all since it is an example set forth by Jesus Christ himself?”
Do Catholics actually follow that example? I come from an entire family of Catholics and I have never seen a single one of them go out into the desert and subsist without food for 40 days during Lent.
Of course, Jesus never told us to try to follow that example, probably because it would be very foolish for us mortal humans to attempt. However, if you want to accuse others of not following the example, shouldn’t you follow it yourself first, so as not to be a hypocrite?
So, Jesus' fasting the in the desert for forty days is in fact "self-effort" that comes to vanity?
His passion/suffering [The true meaning of passion is SUFFERING.] is in fact "self effort" that comes to vanity?
If you knew ANYTHING about Him and Catholicism you would KNOW that suffering IS part of the human experience.
Check it out, if you dare!
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/08/a-catholic-reflection-on-the-meaning-of-suffering/
How else do we pay for our sins? Or don't you believe that we DO have to pay for our sins?
6. Catholics must observe the MEATLESS Fridays during Lent and on Ash Wednesday Protestants don't have to do this. <<
Some items are actually valid examples of “church discipline.” The meatless Fridays during Lent aren’t salvational issues. They’re church discipline issues. Even if I didn’t personally do it, if I were in a church where this was the norm, I wouldn’t be urging other people to not do it or cause anyone to stumble from what they believed right by eating hamburgers in public on Friday. When they got expanded into claimed salvational issues is when the problems began to happen.
There are some parallel issues in other churches. Some forbid to drink at all. Some forbid to dance at all. Some will not have a piano played in the worship service. And so on.
Jesus never erred.
Doing something that is ostensibly the right thing, for the wrong reason... is worse than abstaining from doing it.
Read 1 Cor 5:3-5 ... the one doing wickedness was to be put out of the fellowship SO THAT his flesh could be taken by satan yet his soul remain saved.
Divorce was allowed because of the HARDNESS of those Judaic hearts. Not a GLOWING recommendation.
God did NOT place different standards on non-Catholics. THEY imposed those different standards on themselves via the emergence of Protestantism and the defrocked, excommunicated Father Martin Luther in the 16th century, 1,500 hundred years ago.
As for instruction from God, does that mean that ANY group of people who REALLY believe that they had/have "instruction from God" have the True Word?
By your definition that would exculpate Hindu and Muslim beliefs.
It’s amazing that some Catholics do believe.
It’s amazing that some PROTESTANTS do believe, too!
If it weren’t for God maneuvering to meet us where we need Him most, it wouldn’t happen at all in any church... shoot, we wouldn’t even have churches.
God’s grace is amazing.
We have church discipline issues, but nothing that can rise above the grace of God.
I’m trying to make a sharp distinction between humans’ theology and God’s salvations. When God wills a salvation, it happens.
The 16th century is 1500 years ago? In big type? We have entered a time machine? :-)
I believe even devout Catholics have hypothesized that God could save a Muslim even while still “unchurched” by speaking to him through the voice of Christ... this has gone to such an extent in fact that some have hypothesized that this speaking can even happen through the Koran... and have KISSED a Koran to show it... which at best shares a misleading message (like we love this Koran as a whole, which is ghastly wrong).
“Do you “remember the Sabbath” by watching football?”
I don’t watch football, so no.
“Divorce was allowed because of the HARDNESS of those Judaic hearts. Not a GLOWING recommendation.”
Yet God, in His wisdom, allowed it. Are you trying to say that you, or the Catholic church, is wiser than God?
“God did NOT place different standards on non-Catholics.”
So you agree with men then. Why are you arguing?
“THEY imposed those different standards on themselves...”
I really don’t care what standards men place on themselves. If they are bad standards, God will judge them for it, just like everyone else. If you want to argue about the merits of standards people imposed on themselves, go find someone else to argue with, because I don’t really care.
“As for instruction from God, does that mean that ANY group of people who REALLY believe that they had/have “instruction from God” have the True Word?”
No.
“By your definition that would exculpate Hindu and Muslim beliefs”
BTW, that wasn’t “my” definition. You typed it, so it would be YOUR definition.
cloudy may be one of the elect, or may not be. We aren’t God and don’t have that kind of vision. From separate expressions of cloudy, I think it’s possible. But that’s just me.
We can have an issue like that of Lazarus. He was clearly revived. But he was also all wrapped in grave clothes, which Jesus told the onlookers to unwrap.
I’m trying to take a grace approach here, which might not be entirely pleasing to any party. But letting God do the damning of people at the right time... concluding that they willingly lost themselves in the world... seems a winning strategy to me. Then I don’t have to do it, and get egg on my face if/because I was wrong.
Some folks try to act all holy before God has even gotten them ready for it. The result is a lot of hypocrisy. I at least try to see that my own soul is withdrawn from a certain evil before I say anything public against that evil. That way I’m not saying it just for show.
I have found through the school of hard knocks that this is counterproductive...
(not talking about you here)
In His time... in His time... He makes all things beautiful in His time....
So can poverty.
If you want to; I suppose.
Exodus 17:11
11 So it came about when Moses held his hand up, that Israel prevailed, and when he let his hand down, Amalek prevailed.
12 But Moses' hands were heavy. Then they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it; and Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other. Thus his hands were steady until the sun set.
1 Corinthians 12:27 (ESV)
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
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