When you avg in a homo’s 20 yr short lifespan it tends to lower the overall avg.
Pray for America
My neighbors used to be members of a Methodist church, but they quit - saying they had become too liberal.
Seems like the same response as the R’s - - become more “diverse” instead of getting back to basics.
That’s the death knell for both.
Pinging to you.
Notice they left out Jesus. Going big tent is turning them into a pup tent.
I notice that the tactic to grow the church was “new and diverse” members... instead of, oh, I don’t know, preaching the Bible?
(Some of the conservative Lutheran denominations prohibited dancing-the devil's work you know).
Once the Church moved in a different direction, supporting Mugabe for example, I left. I only attended church when I was home and went with my then elderly parents.
The Methodist church has been advertising on television for at least 10 yrs but I have yet to see one featuring God.
The biggest problem with the Methodists is that there are no firm beliefs, there is no real doctrine and little to no theology. It lacks the emotionalism of many denominations, it has no identity because it has no concrete beliefs, I think even the belief in God is optional.
I was raised Methodist, I started calling it the Methodist Social Club. I finally woke up and became a Catholic.
Man, that's ironic.
"Rethink Church" is the United Methodist Church's newest campaign targeting 19- to 34-year-olds who may not be familiar with the church or who are seeking to make their lives more meaningful.
Doomed. Because it's not about making anybody's life "more meaningful". It's about losing it.
Screw the programs and the "rethinking" in the same old new way. Without gimmicks, without powerpoint or movie clips or any other seduction of the culture, preach the law in it's full condemning strength. Then preach the gospel -- Jesus dying for sin and rising on the third day.
Big religion is like Big Government.. They want you to be dependent on them for Life.
Then, at a neighborhood restaurant where my sisters were dining, the booth behind them was seated a man and the new female minister of the church. The minister and her male lunch partner were discussing myself and my family being heathens and how we needed to be spiritually 'saved" My sisters called me up and I in turn called the minister and informed her that gossip is a sin and how dare they discuss myself and my family in a public forum.
Instead of worrrying about age/diversity and other demographic factors, how about UMC looks at how they are appealing to souls? How they are ‘selling’ faith in Christ?
Guess ‘our hearts, our minds, and our doors are always open’ didn’t work? Frankly, I thought it was a smack to traditional Christians and an ‘open’ invitation to building its ‘gay’ community.
We’d go to pre-service discussion groups at our local UMC church/community center; the liberal bent drove me out real fast. There was almost a physical ‘looking down the nose’ at anyone who didn’t go along with the current liberal pap. That particular church was quite conservative until about 10 years ago when it and the ‘hood turned almost on a dime. Sad.
Are they dying or leaving.
They need to check out the Catholic Church.
I stuck it out for a little while, but when she admittedly prepared her post New Year's sermon from Time Magazine, that was the last straw. Haven't been back since. Whatever happened to preparing sermons from the Bible? What's next - a sermon prepared from the Communist Manifesto?
RIP UMC
It’s interesting that those denominations that tried to be more progressive, liberal and ‘relevant’, in order to attract young people, have done exactly the opposite. The young who are yearning for religion are taking a look at the liberal churches and rejecting them for churches with more real religion, which are, ironically, less liberal.