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Churches Fight Back Against Shrinking Membership
US News & World Report ^ | June 3, 2009 | Dan Gilgoff

Posted on 06/03/2009 7:26:03 PM PDT by fgoodwin

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To: fgoodwin; lightman
I'm so happy the Missouri Lutheran Church wasn't mentioned in this article about woebegone shrinking churches.

It's a pity a lot of Lutherans are still hanging around The Gay Church (ELCA) waiting for a miracle that will never happen.

Leni

101 posted on 09/11/2009 3:15:58 PM PDT by MinuteGal (Hey, Dum-Dem..........Are You Better Off Than You Were Nine Months Ago?)
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To: fgoodwin

I am torn about leaving my church (UCC, if that matters). I’ve been going there since I was 5 (I’m 50 now). I had all my children & my husband baptized there. Both my parents were buried (and the services were for both parents were very, very nice, if one can say that about a funeral, very comforting for both)

My 3 oldest boys were confirmed by this church.

But I haven’t been to a service now in almost 2 years & son #3 is a staff member at a non-denominational evangelical church. Both older boys have abandoned church completely, though on #2 did go back the the UCC with us for awhile.

I stopped going to church because found that I was leaving the services angry rather than peaceful.

We had a youth minister who preached sermons on the evils of global warming & every week we prayed for the people who died in Iraq rather than for victory.

Son #3 told me that he felt less sure of his faith after going through the year long confirmation class than before. (Class was lead by same youth minister - she told my son right after 9/11 that all bin Laden needed was a razor & a hug. She also told him that even Hitler would get to Heaven!!) He now feels at home at his new church.

I hate to leave this church because of the history I have, but I feel like the church has left me. And I want my youngest son to have a religious upbringing, but he much prefers going to church with his older brother. We have no problems with the evangelical church, but my husband & I just don’t feel it’s right for us.

The minister I had a problem with has left the church & gone to a church in Vermont (fits her) , but I’m afraid to go back because it will break my heart if the change to the church I used to love is not because of her.

Has anyone else left the UCC & where did you end up going? I am not thrilled with the Episcopal (where I was baptized) or the Lutherans.


102 posted on 09/11/2009 4:15:00 PM PDT by KosmicKitty (WARNING: Hormonally crazed woman ahead!!)
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To: fgoodwin

You can spend all you want on ad agencies but so long as you continue to abandon the Word your memmbership will continue to shrink. When you take it up again then your membbership will grow again.

Vy the way, when we’ll you apologize for your embrace of commuinsm and your refusal to stand up against Christian persecuting Islam fueled by oil’s illusion of wealth as the embrace of materialism?


103 posted on 09/11/2009 4:45:13 PM PDT by AmericanVictory (Should we be more like them or they more like we used to be?)
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To: fgoodwin

You can spend all you want on ad agencies but so long as you continue to abandon the Word your memmbership will continue to shrink. When you take it up again then your membbership will grow again.

Vy the way, when we’ll you apologize for your embrace of commuinsm and your refusal to stand up against Christian persecuting Islam fueled by oil’s illusion of wealth as the embrace of materialism?


104 posted on 09/11/2009 4:45:22 PM PDT by AmericanVictory (Should we be more like them or they more like we used to be?)
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To: KosmicKitty
Has anyone else left the UCC & where did you end up going?

In my County the UCC has lost five congregations in the past decade; three of them since the decision by the General Synod to advocate for gay marriage.

One of the congregations went totally independent; one became conservative Presbyterian; one to the Reformed Church in America; and the other but most recent two to the Evangelical Covenant Church.

ALL of those departing congregations were founded prior to the American Revolution.

105 posted on 09/11/2009 6:16:19 PM PDT by lightman (Adjutorium nostrum (+) in nomine Domini.)
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To: lightman

Interesting

My church’s history dates back to the 1600’s. I wish they would leave the UCC. I liked them much better before they joined.


106 posted on 09/12/2009 6:45:47 AM PDT by KosmicKitty (WARNING: Hormonally crazed woman ahead!!)
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