Posted on 08/03/2023 8:05:45 PM PDT by anthropocene_x
For those not attending, how do you do the great commission: Go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
A better question would be, why is any religious American still going to church given the woke pope that is running the catholic church, and the protestants doing gay marriages and having LGBTQRSTUV “ministers”?
I attend a non-denominational church that teaches The Gospel and God’s Word as written. Our attendance is phenomenal. I have noticed that other churches that do the same don’t have any problems.
The woke churches are dead.
Catholic church went gay.
Stopped singing hymns and moved to “Jesus is my boyfriend” and Hare Krishna style repetitious chanting. Too many preachers seem like game show hosts or seem to be caught up in celebrity culture. In an effort to be liked, they jumped in with every pop culture trend like homosexuality, abortion, etc, no matter how badly they have to compromise their principles. Last, the buildings are bland and uninspiring... except for the ones that look like malls and have coffee shops and gift shops.
They stripped away the majesty, stopped leading and started following, and made it ordinary.
And it turns out “ordinary” is everywhere.
Catholic Church was filled with homos when I was a lad in the 1980s.
I would get in trouble posting this anywhere else, and I might get in trouble here too...
First, the situation is much worse than this would indicate. Not only are fewer people going to church, but much fewer people are going to a church that preaches Christ and Him crucified, desiring heaven and avoiding hell, and what discipleship costs, in terms of life choices, and willing to give it all to God. For all the doctrinal differences between denominations, this was not an issue 100 or 150 years ago, outside of high criticism which might be found in big cities but nowhere else. Today, at least half of the churches preach everything except the Bible, the Gospel, and discipleship, so attendance there doesn’t count.
Second, the church throughout most of its history has been able to balance the devotional with the martial, the monks with the knights, the prayer warriors with the antidevil warriors. Today, “manliness” is not a part of church practice, whether it be the man who stands before God in prayer, or the man who stands before Satan with the full armor of God. Discipline is nonexistent in the church, and so there is nothing to be gained from going there, or associating with those who go there. Even the secular world recognizes this in some ways, such as the rise of the martial arts—if you wanted to be a disciple of Christ and didn’t have a Bible to guide you, bushido would be a good place to start.
Third, there is nothing, outside the Eucharist, that you get at church that you can’t get at home, usually at a higher aesthetic quality. Church services from large churches with music and nationally-recognized pastors come over the TV, livestreamed on the internet, or through your church app. Why should I go to the dinky church that has 20-30 or even 100 people with volunteer musicians and average preachers, when I can save my time and my gas and watch the Big Dogs of the church, often while I’m multitasking like eating breakfast or cleaning the house or scrolling through Facebook?
So how is all of this going to change? It will take a massive move of the Spirit over the whole land, and that will most likely take a massive collapse of the peace and prosperity that we have come to expect for the last 80 years, requiring people to beg God to come back into their lives and our society. Until then, it’s just going to get worse and worse, because there is nothing outside of hell that is lost by being anything other than a disciple of Christ.
If I told you the fattest, most comfortable and passively entertained people to ever exist didn’t bother to go to church much, would it really be shocking?
Freegards
The defining problem is that the Protestant Churches no longer, by and large, preach the Gospel, a soul-changing reformation experience (Justification) where God himself changes the man from the inside out.
Conquering the power of sin in the life of men and replacing with a Love of God.
Churches have become worldly places filled with rock music and pastors in $10,000 suits and ministering women.
People are instinctively repelled by this even if they can’t accept why.
Most churches encourage self worship and wealth worship instead of telling people to purify themselves and spread the Good News.
“...most likely take a massive collapse of the peace and prosperity that we have come to expect for the last 80 years, requiring people to beg God to come back into their lives...”
Every Great Awakening in American history follows the onset of very bad economic times.
Ironically, I returned to Church about 12 years ago.
So many pastors and priests are indeed a disappointment. I don’t even mean preachers with post-modern views or opinions disconnected from the Bible. I’m talking outright criminals or sexual perverts.
It bothers me, but it does not affect my faith at all. In fact, it even strengthens it. We are all fallen creatures. I suppose it is impossible to avoid.
The Bible and the grace of Jesus Christ exist outside and above it all, and makes the contrast with darkness all that much more clear.
They can not go, but then there’s that problematic Matthew 18:20.
“I talked to god in a foxhole in Vietnam.
I had no need of churches after that.”
I hear that. For me it is a personal thing.
Do not like crowds either.
“Why should I go to the dinky church that has 20-30 or even 100 people with volunteer musicians and average preachers, when I can save my time and my gas and watch the Big Dogs of the church...”
Because a good church doesn’t exist to ENTERTAIN you! You go to the small church, get to know others, learn about their families, problems - and you offer advice. You pray for them. You introduce them to others who might help.
And when YOU need help - and it really sounds like you do - THEY are there to carry your burdens with you.
The church is the BODY of Christ, not a painting of Him!
Yes, you might have to look for a good church. Bit there are Catholic as well as Protestant ministers who don’t worship the LBGTQWERTY golden calf.
You don’t have to prove it to me :-) I’m the unpaid organist and sub preacher at a dinky church, 20 people on a good Sunday, a pastor who pays his bill by teaching second grade, and people who find Christ in worship, in the Eucharist, and in each other.
Got that right.
The premise of this article is in some ways absurd. Most of these people not going to church have plenty of time to blow on social media.
Not all churches are losing members. In Southern California, the Calvary Chapels are thriving. Tens of thousands of worshippers attend the Calvary Chapel in Chino Hills each Sunday, causing traffic jams on local streets. The Calvary Chapel, which grew out of the Jesus Freak movement of the sixties and seventies, preaches a no-nonsense gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
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