Draw your own conclusions, folks . . .
**Barna’s polling also found that young Americans share an increasingly global outlook **
Go ANYWHERE in the world and attend a Catholic Mass. If it’s in Latin the words are the same. If it is a native language, English speakers can still attend.
Since 1990 our little Southern Baptist church has grown from about 150 on Sundays to 2200 last Easter. On Wednesdays, we have about 200 teenagers show up to hang out at church and receive a Christian message. We have more children under 4 years old than many churches have adults.
Also, the United Methodist Church has gone liberal and embraced homosexual marriage, does not condemn out of wedlock births, and glosses over the gospel in favor of feel good theology. It has become a club and not a church where God and his son are worshiped.
They just can’t get it through their heads that people don’t go to church because it’s *trendy*.
That people don’t go to a church because it looks like a spaceship.
That people won’t like a sermon better if the “clergyperson” is dressed like Elvis.
That people don’t want a Bible that calls God “She”, is “Afro-centric” written in the vernacular, poorly, tries to ingratiate with moral relativism, suggests that Jesus was “gay, and that’s okay”, and otherwise looks like it was written by a sarcastic atheist.
Nor do people like hymnals that 40 years ago were pop songs, and bubblegum ones at that, lyrics unchanged. Why should that matter?
The Orthodox Church - standing room only for every service.
You might want to note that the “god’s work, our hands” motto is of the ELCA church, and doesn’t have anything to do with Lutheranism.
I think the main issue is that people don’t want to feel any moral restrictions on their sexual activity. Thus traditional churches who believe that there is such a thing as sin and proper behavior turn off those who don’t want to hear that. Those churches that embrace the modern view that anything goes and that there is no sin are losing members because, if there is no sin and no standards of behavior, why go to church on Sunday morning?
“With their new branding campaigns, mainline churches are betting that many young Americans are looking for worship alternatives to politically conservative evangelical congregations.”
I think they might be betting incorrectly.
Paul, the Apostle, said “I am determined to know nothing among you but Christ, and Him crucified.”
“So it’s pouring $20 million...
Let’s see, perhaps if they TAUGHT THE TRUTH FROM THE BIBLE,
instead of ignoring it, they wouldn’t be dying.
So they are going to combine the empty liberalism of the mainline churches with the noisy rock & roll “entertainment” of our pop-culture mega-churches? Sounds like the worst of both worlds to me. An empty core surrounded by the constant noise and chaos of American pop culture. Sort of like a black hole - attracting everything and destroying everything it attracts. There is an outer shell of chaos and energy and a limitless void within. Must truth and beauty be forever banished from this profane world? If that is all that is left of Christianity, I would rather be an atheist (fortunately, that is not all that is left of Christianity).
How did I miss this thread last June?
BTTT
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
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.
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?
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?