Numbers do matter: 10 signs of a disturbing trend in America's churches

Christian Post ^ | 10/06/2021 | Thom S. Rainer

[Wallace T.]

I am not necessarily a bean counter, but the large evangelical church I attend in suburban Dallas seems somewhat emptier than it was on Sundays 5 years ago. I was noticing this pre-Covid.

[ConservativeMind]

Actually, I disagree with much of this “Christian.”

Of course, if you believe metrics are in the Bible, then I’d like to see those verses. I could be wrong.

[Parmy]

I am Catholic. One of the problems that I feel is very apparent is that the Priests aren't active, especially after this lockdown. They want the parishioners to evangelize and get the people back into the pews.

I believe that like successful salesmen they need to make an effort to go door-to-door and speak to their parishioner that are not attending. In other words, go where the parishioners are.

Also, they need to get these seminarians out on their shoe leather knocking on doors, just like the Mormons to.

Then they need, IMHO, to have their office managers on the phone making cold-calls. IMHO

[Terry L Smith]

First, you count the people.
Then, you count ‘the plate money’.
Then, you see which checks are not there, and by whom.
Then comes the letter(s) to the absent parishioners:
“Uh, hi! We missed(your money) you at the last ‘x’ services. Are you well? ....”

[Vigilanteman]

I was once taught the following in business school:

1. When performance is reported, performance is measured.
   
2. When performance is measured, performance is improved.
   
3. When an excess amount of resources are spent in reporting and measuring, then there is less time available to perform.

Some businesses have reached stage three. Far fewer churches have. Many aren't even in stage 1 because they are performing so poorly that they are ashamed to even report.

[cgbg]

You need a new pope.

The current clown worships the Woke Pantheon...

Here is his latest abomination:

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/popes-swiss-guards-resign-over-mandatory-covid-19-vaccination

[Zathras]

A church is NOT a building.

[Vigilanteman]

“Uh, hi! We missed(your money) you at the last ‘x’ services. Are you well? ....”

LOL! I attended the wedding of a family member once at a Methodist church (bride's choice) and made the mistake of signing in with my name and address on their guest register.

Sure enough, such a letter arrived about a month or so later. But they are woke and speak out against racism. So all is good with their regular congregation of 20 or so souls in a chapel that was built to seat 400.

[Persevero]

Terry, lots of us give cash. But your cynicism is noted.

[Parmy]

It's more than that. A new pope won't solve the problem. You might as well say that we need a new president.

It has to do IMHO with the desire of those insiders to make it great again. They just don't have it and they are locked into singular dogma.

[olivia3boys]

I left my once-excellent evangelical church in the SF Bay Area last year after a quarter century of regular weekly attendance. And in 2019 I even went on a trip to Israel with them; I loved my church and was sad to leave it.

Four reasons I left, and they all occurred in 2020: 1) the church refused to reopen in person, even when the county allowed it, and when it finally did, reopened masked, 2) the excellent head pastor’s sermons became less excellent when he was preaching alone to a camera instead of to a congregation, and 3) the church/head pastor took a tilt to the left, including some disparaging of police (who also promptly left) and the Jan 6th “riot” and some praise of BLM, and 4) the “substitute” pastors when the main pastor wasn’t preaching (more and more often) weren’t excellent preachers (and were even more left wing).

We found a new excellent church which has enjoyed tremendous growth over the past year: spirit-filled, reopened early, unmasked, excellent pastor, great bench, conservative.

It was hard to leave our church of 25 years but as my mother says, life doesn’t stay the same.

[who knows what evil?]

Hard to find truth at a church nowadays...

[DJ MacWoW]

I agree. God cares about the condition of one’s heart first and foremost. His reason for wanting to “pack the church” is much different than mans. Butts in the pew means nothing without hearts there too.

[Mr. Lucky]

Well said.

[Salvation]

How man times is “40 days or 40 years” mentioned in the Bible?

[tnlibertarian]

The problem can also be in what you measure. Many churches focus on the easy things: attendance and giving. While those can be indicators of the strength of the church, simple growth in people and income should never be the focus. Reaching people for Christ, improving relationships, both with God and each other. Those are the goals of the church, but not easy to measure. Too many churches go from measuring attendance and giving to making it the goal. That’s how you end up with an attractional model that is afraid to offend anyone.

[ConservativeMind]

Exactly! That has nothing to do with constant headcounts per room and per building, per hour.

[CodeToad]

What’s wrong with churches? This article exemplifies it: They are a business these days. No real mention of God in the entire article, only justification for attending a building.

[Ponyexpress9790]

The biggest problems with converting to Catholicism are the Pope and “progressive “ leadership, the biggest problems for Apostolic Pentecosts is standing on the basic principles of the bible...a man is a man and a woman is a woman, marriage before sex, and a Holy lifestyle. Other denominations are in between generally, but all churches are fighting a society that abhors God, Jesus, and/or anything that contradicts their corrupt lifestyle. All of Christianity is being attacked and denigrated by the Left, and the democratic party is leading the way. My 2 cents worth.