|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Purgatory: What turns people off about church?
|
Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
...Brass bands. Men and women dressed up in militaristic uniforms. Teetotalism....
You are not necessarily wrong there - certainly regarding uniforms and teetotalism, but they are a feature of membership, not attendance; and we have an awful lt of people who worship with us and are faithful to the Army and Christ who neither wear uniform nor abstain from alcohol.
Brass bands are far more popular than you might think - certainly more versatile than any old church organ. You can get the most sublime hymn tune or the most exciting dance-band number from a brass band..
--------------------
"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pre-cambrian
Shipmate
# 2055
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
...Brass bands. Men and women dressed up in militaristic uniforms. Teetotalism....
You are not necessarily wrong there - certainly regarding uniforms and teetotalism, but they are a feature of membership, not attendance; and we have an awful lt of people who worship with us and are faithful to the Army and Christ who neither wear uniform nor abstain from alcohol.
And you'll find an awful lot of people in Anglican churches who are not wearing "silly pointed hats and cloaks made of old fashioned curtain material". However, my primary purpose was to draw attention to your inter-denominational polemic.
--------------------
"We cannot leave the appointment of Bishops to the Holy Ghost, because no one is confident that the Holy Ghost would understand what makes a good Church of England bishop."
Posts: 2314 | From: Croydon | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
|
Posted
quote:
Originally Posted by deano:
I think we need to start out by making the point about science and religion being compatible. As far as I’m concerned, that is the deal-breaker for most people. I am convinced that most people automatically assume that a belief in Christianity is akin to believing in a young Earth and Creationism, and therefore they reject the faith, and don’t come to Church. My evidence is purely anecdotal, but it seems to be a mainstream view expressed on most TV programmes, by many social commentators, entertainers, comedians and the like.
I think in some circles, this has been said over and over and over again in all kinds of ways.
Trouble is that people who say "science and religion are compatible" say it generally as an assertion, not as a proof. I'm a Christian who doesn't generally feel threatened by science. But I have yet to see a convincing or convicting argument or way of thinking that can illustrate how they can be compatible without sacrificing one on the figurative altar of the other. I think for myself, if I cut really hard, it gets to a point where you're a scientifically literate person who chooses to go to church and "wrestle" with theological issues, intellectually. For most scientifically minded people, the church isn't opposed to science or incompatible with science, it's simply irrelevant because the truth claims that the church has a history of standing for are at the most not verifiable and highly unlikely.
I show up largely in part because of the fact that I'm already invested in the church and have a strong emotional affection for the place. I also see a lot of good in the place externally. But ask me to say how it's possible for someone who hasn't already had that (often precognitive) formation?
I really don't know, and I don't think anyone else does either. And merely asserting "science a religion are compatible" doesn't solve the problem.
People come to church these days, generally, for idiosyncratic reasons. Any attempt to make a general appeal for churchgoing will fall flat because a lot of these reasons are conflicting. The church is too social, it's too reserved, it's too doctrinaire, it's too loosey-goosey, it asks too much of its members, doesn't ask enough, too many noisy kids, not family-friendly, too big, too small, too rich, too poor, too noisy, too dull, too contemporary, too traditional...I could go on and on, and each one of these would be true of a particular church. And so in a sense they're true of the Church as a whole.
[ 17. December 2012, 17:02: Message edited by: Bullfrog. ]
--------------------
Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Desert Daughter
Shipmate
# 13635
|
Posted
Here's my list of turn-offs:
- Having to get chummy with other people (ie "the peace")
- Having to sit close to other people
- other people in general
- modern church "music"
- Lowbrow sermons
- pompous priests
- the holier-than-thou trad-cath family in the pew in front of me (I'm sure they're Opus Dei ![[Eek!]](eek.gif) )
- the six-foot-ten giant in the pew in front of me
- the unruly children in the pew behind me
-altarboys and -girls wearing trainers
- too much incense
- no incense at all
- grrrrrrrrr
![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
--------------------
"Prayer is the rejection of concepts." (Evagrius Ponticus)
Posts: 733 | Registered: Apr 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
Bullfrog
I think there is plenty of discussion about religion and science going on, not just based on assertion.
An interesting way to begin is to consider that science is not philosophical, but practical. Its naturalism is a method, not a world-view.
Of course, others disagree!
Anyway, not wishing to detour the thread, but there is plenty of stuff about this out there.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
sebby
Shipmate
# 15147
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Hard pews. Organ music. Silly chanting of prayers on one note. Draughty, echoing churches with hard-to-hear sound systems, old fashioned choir music, men in silly pointed hats and cloaks made of old fashioned curtain material, reading from books that skip from one page to another...
Only some of those things. In a post-Harry Potter world, the curtains and wands if anything would be a draw rather than a hindrance - as some Fresh Expression groups have found.
Few of these posts have touched on the delicate issue of Personality. This might be particuarly true of the CofE and other non-RC churches. It is particualry sigificant in smaller communities, when it is quite possible for local people to be aware of who their vicar is. Like here.
Here (and this is only one community and I recognise the difference between small rural, and large suburban etc) the numbers attending church directly relate to how the local community like the vicar.
Forget the ecclesiology of 'team' and other diocesan buzz words as important as they may be in other contexts, I'm afraid to say that here a vicar who is outgoing and welcoming with a strongish or colourful personality, who pops into the pubs and is known, tends to draw more in. A quick glance at numbers in the service registers under different personality types bears this out. The additional numbers may not be great (perhaps fifteen to twenty), but in a smallish community that is very significant.
Perception and goodwill may not pay diocesan shares, but are very important.
A positive perception can make some non-church people feel they want to attend at Christmas, and possibly feel more at ease at calling themselves 'Christian' when it comes to filling in a census form.
--------------------
sebhyatt
Posts: 1340 | From: yorks | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
My clergy friends say they enjoy church. I point out they get to DO stuff, we have to just sit.
This is one of Frank Viola's subtexts; what he proposes as 'church' is a small scale, informal gathering where everyone is encouraged to contribute. As a result it should be very different every week. Of course the problem with this is that in practice certain habits kick in, people ride their hobby horses etc.
One group I went to had a formula that "institutionalized" involvement.
Meetings were about 1/3rd singing, 1/3rd a sermon or equivalent, 1/3rd prayer.
We had a song book, after a song ended people would yell out what song number they wanted next and the music leader would grab one of the numbers he heard and that's what we did next; so the songs were chosen by the people present, with an occasional song chosen (usually the first few) by the music leader (which helped us learn some new ones).
Then after an indefinite amount of time, not a precise number of minutes, the preacher would start a "talk" about something, or invite a missionary to tell about his work; also anyone who wanted to give a sermon could sign up and he would work with them on developing a sermon. Then we ended with prayer this way -- "anyone who wants prayer, raise your hand; anyone who doesn't want prayer, go to someone whose hand is raised and pray with them. When you are done, go to someone else whose hand is raised. If you want to just chat, leave the area where people are praying and go to the side of the room (which had a table with the cookies etc people signed up to bring).
Structured, but no obligation to do anything, lots of opportunity to contribute in ways meaningful to the active ones.
It was not billed as a church, it had started as a few people meeting in someone's kitchen and had grown to over 100 people meeting in a gym by the time I found it.
Alas, the leader moved away, the guy he appointed as replacement was young an inexperienced and resorted authoritarianism, "you have to obey me." The whole thing quickly collapsed, within 3 weeks only 30 people attended, 6 weeks it was dead. The lesson I got out of that -- we don't know how to train people how to lead.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Watch this 11 minute video about what motivates people -- Autonomy, challenge and mastery, and transcendent purpose.
Brilliant stuff! If you've ever wondered what really makes the academe tick, there you have it. And if you have ever wondered why there is so much resistance from academics to governments turning academia into yet another business, where you place big monetary incentives on "measurable success", this is it. It's not that everybody in academia is a lazy left-wing hippy. It's that most people who have kept going at this until they actually landed a permanent position are in for the autonomy, mastery and purpose. And there is an intuitive understanding that you will not get good academic performances if all this becomes a mere education / R&D business. But I digress...
However, I do not agree with your conclusions:
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Autonomy? Churches are opposed to autonomy for any but a few leaders such as clergy and somewhat the music director, possibly a Sunday school teacher, and depending on the church not even them.
This assumes that Church is where religious life happens. But that one hour or so on a Sunday morning is not what determines your autonomy. In fact, the video mentioned a software company that once in a quarter gave everybody a day off to pursue their interests, with the only condition that they would show the results later at a company party, in a relaxed atmosphere. Well, that is what Church is. You get six days off to pursue your spiritual development, and then you come to a one hour party of the "company". To say that your autonomy is threatened because you didn't get to DJ the party is a false perspective on religion.
And perhaps that points to a very important reason why people get turned off by Church, where I now mean Church services and the like. They vastly overrate the importance of this, they make that the be all and end all of Christian religion. It is decidedly not.
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Challenge and mastery? Just keep doing what you did last week, last year, last decade in exactly the same way. Any job or entertainment that told you to do that you'd get awfully bored with. (Hamlet is a great play but would you want to sit and watch it every week for 50 years? The same arguments can be made about a weekly requirement to watch Hamlet that are made about a weekly requirement to go to church -- good discipline, important messages, it's not about you its about the play, etc.)
Again, this is confused. It says that the Church service is where religious development is at. It's not. It's you where that's at. Do you not find it a challenge to follow the Lord? Have you achieved mastery in being Christian? Church services are about thanking God for giving us this challenge and being patient with our amateurish attempts, and to get encouragement and spiritual strength for another week of trying to follow Him. Church services are also an occasion for celebrating the community of Christians. But just like for the software company: It's not at the party where one attempts to perform better.
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Transcendent purpose? Churches claim to offer it, but do they? I'm not convinced what goes on in church has any direct relationship to worshiping God, and 90%-98% of a church's efforts are about itself, paying for the clergy and building and putting on it's programs for its own people.
Where did you last hear about general Christian transcendent purposes then? If not at your Church, then change to another one. Of course, Churches as real organisations and need to raise questions about maintenance etc. But as much as I've disliked some of the Church services I've attended, and "loathing" is not too strong a term there, I've not yet been to a RC service where there was not some attempt to give transcendent purpose. Not one. And we are talking half a dozen countries and I don't know how many different Churches there. Yes, sometimes my opinion on the suggested purpose was "thanks, but no thanks", but that's a different matter.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I don't think people are 'put off' by church. They've just never considered it.
Turn the question round - how would you reply, if you are a churchgoer, to someone who comes up and says to you, 'What puts you off from becoming a freemason/joining our amateur dramatic group/neighborhood watch?'
Dead right. At the risk of repeating myself, but then why not, I grew up in tough M/c area, where nobody was religious. My parents and their friends were not; my grandparents and their friends were not. Why would they be? One of my grandfathers used to curse clergymen, and said his main memory of them was in WWI, praying for them as they went over the top. Gee, thanks, padre; that went well.
Even more, the original question assumed that people ought to want to be interested in church, or were sort of subliminally intersted, and that somehow the church or the churches were putting them off. In truth, the situation is reversed.
If the churches want people to be interested, they have to do things that will seize the attention and awaken the interest of the utterly ignorant (about church) and utterly uninterested (about church). And they have to do it outside their church buildings where the targets will see it and hear it, and they will have to do it (whatever it is) in language and actions that mean something to the utterly ignorant (see above) and utterly uninterested.
Above all, they have to remember that the Great Commission doesn't say "don't have a safe place of rest and refreshment, you believers" -- but it does say "go out". Preaching (and singing, and..., and...) in church are all very well if they nourish the faithful, but do nothing at all for those who aren't already inside. And they're worthless if they don't also enable and encourage those inside to then go outside.
John
Posts: 5929 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
|
Posted
IngoB ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
--------------------
Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
|
Posted
Desert Daughter: quote:
- other people in general
In other words, "I love mankind. It's people I can't stand." (Charles Schultz) As a desert daughter, it seems a hermitage or the top of a pillar would be a good fit. Enough with the Christian community crap. It's not right for everyone.
--------------------
"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
|
Posted
Two things definitely turn people off church: everything and anything. Though not necessarily in that order.
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Aravis
Shipmate
# 13824
|
Posted
It turns people off when they go to church (myself included) when what they go there for is just not done particularly well. It is not inspiring when a choir struggles through a good anthem out of tune, prayers are poorly thought out, Sunday School consists of colouring in a worksheet which tells you God wants you to be nice to people, the sermon doesn't make you think, and above all, when NOTHING in the whole experience facilitates your contact with God.
Sometimes, though, a church has a genuine community spirit that draws you in despite all the reasons not to go. That is probably the greatest asset any church can have (though sometimes a greater emphasis on spirituality and reflection, and actual space to do this, wouldn't go amiss).
Posts: 689 | From: S Wales | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Stejjie
Shipmate
# 13941
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
IngoB
Seconded... I come from somewhere completely different to IngoB on the Christian spectrum, but yeah...
--------------------
A not particularly-alt-worshippy, fairly mainstream, mildly evangelical, vaguely post-modern-ish Baptist
Posts: 1117 | From: Urmston, Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Stejjie
Shipmate
# 13941
|
Posted
That said, Belle Ringer does raise some interesting points. But the trouble is that for everyone who wants church like that (and as a minister, I would love it, really love it, if those things happened, not least all the decisions that get referred "upwards" which people are perfectly capable of making themselves), there are others who don't want that and are happy to come and sit and sing and listen to a sermon.
And I'm too much of a softie to say to either group "This is the way we're doing things - if you don't like, tough." I'd rather we went as much as possible together as a church, however difficult that may be.
--------------------
A not particularly-alt-worshippy, fairly mainstream, mildly evangelical, vaguely post-modern-ish Baptist
Posts: 1117 | From: Urmston, Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Autonomy? Churches are opposed to autonomy for any but a few leaders such as clergy and somewhat the music director, possibly a Sunday school teacher, and depending on the church not even them.
This assumes that Church is where religious life happens. But that one hour or so on a Sunday morning is not what determines your autonomy... You get six days off to pursue your spiritual development, and then you come to a one hour party of the "company". To say that your autonomy is threatened because you didn't get to DJ the party is a false perspective on religion.
If I get to be church 6 days a week outside the institution, how come I got scolded by the head clergy guy for volunteering with a charity instead of spending all my time on the institution's needs? It's the church institution that teaches, sometimes aggressively, that it's all about the institution, and the institution is all about Sunday morning.
Church is a party? Fine, but people don't stick around for boring parties with boring DJs, and church is deadly boring.
But a major problem with any conversation about what's right or wrong with church is that those who like church just the way it is think there's something terribly wrong with anyone who disagrees. Those who are happy where they are too often cannot accept that others are legitimately unhappy and belong elsewhere.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
|
Posted
I'm with IngoB, too.
I'm not surprised if the challenge of discipleship puts some folks off. It's tough.
Yesterday saw my local congo at its best in many different ways, and I felt privileged to be a part of that community. But it was just Sunday. I know what a lot of them do seven days a week.
For example, one of our member couples have just started fostering and she turned up with their first foster-child, a very small baby who she was carrying in one of those "close to the heart" slings. After a good time admiring the baby, I got to chatting to one of our newer members about two other foster-care couples in the congo and, as the new member's eyes began to stick out like organ stops, realised (again) how their lives speak.
Place is full of unsung heroes and heroines. I love them. But then I've got to know them, we've shared in each others lives, good and bad. We've journeyed together.
And of course we've got those who, for the time being, are more into taking than giving. Maybe they'll learn, maybe they wont? Nobody's perfect. A few problem children may be a pain in the ass sometimes, but which of us hasn't been a pain the ass sometimes?
--------------------
Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
deano
princess
# 12063
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
Trouble is that people who say "science and religion are compatible" say it generally as an assertion, not as a proof. I'm a Christian who doesn't generally feel threatened by science. But I have yet to see a convincing or convicting argument or way of thinking that can illustrate how they can be compatible without sacrificing one on the figurative altar of the other. I think for myself, if I cut really hard, it gets to a point where you're a scientifically literate person who chooses to go to church and "wrestle" with theological issues, intellectually. For most scientifically minded people, the church isn't opposed to science or incompatible with science, it's simply irrelevant because the truth claims that the church has a history of standing for are at the most not verifiable and highly unlikely.
I understand your position, but it's my belief that the message that science and religion are not compatible is being shouted loud and clear, and it is effective for its simplicity.
I would contend that such a simple message that ignores subtlety, nuance, and theological philosophy is getting through. It is sound bite secularism, and trying to counter it by detailed, careful debate switches people off. “They” say if you are religious you don’t believe in science, and “we” tend to respond with a 17-point discussion plan, referencing St. Thomas Aquinas and Plato. People switch off and remember the simple thing... science good, religion bad.
All I am putting forward is that we should try the same method, reduce the debate to a simple sound bite that can get through the media. Perhaps the CofE needs to hire a media relations expert to get Justin Welby into Hello or onto Loose Women, and to train him to get his message across in a 10-second clip. Why don't we get "our" message out there in a way that the people we want to reach are listening to?
--------------------
"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sighthound:
I would suggest that many people today are (for whatever reason) commitment-phobic. I am myself to a large extent. Generally I had much rather pop into an open church to have a quiet word with God - and leave a donation - than attend a service. Though I have attended more services in the last couple of years than in the previous twenty.
Secondly, church used to be at the centre of the community. There aren't really communities like there used to be. There are individuals, and there are groups, but not really communities in the old sense of the word. People are rootless and move about too much - this is the result of the 'development' of capitalism.
Finally, there didn't use to be that much going on on a Sunday, so going off to church was actually a form of entertainment. At worst you might meet a few friends and enjoy a sing. Nowadays there are a hundred forms of entertainment to be had without even leaving the home. Many of them are free, or effectively so. And of course there are even more options for those venturing through the front door, including the most successful new 'religion' of modern times - retail therapy.
I think all those reasons are partly why cathedral worship has grown so much. People like dipping in and out.
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Hard pews. Organ music. Silly chanting of prayers on one note. Draughty, echoing churches with hard-to-hear sound systems, old fashioned choir music, men in silly pointed hats and cloaks made of old fashioned curtain material, reading from books that skip from one page to another...
If people really hate those things then why has cathedral worship (which is the only place you generally find Anglicans in pointy hats because they are for bishops not priests) grown so much? On the contrary, all those things (imo) help the sense of God being other, something unusual. And personally speaking, I like such 'boring' things ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Churches being different to the World is a good thing - we are supposed to be a distinctive group of people. I don't think churches build on this enough. Instead of trying to get ~down with the kids~, churches should be saying how different they are to the World, that we are a space to be free of all the junk the World foists upon us.
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
|
Posted
If a church becomes known for something particular (eg. the emphasis on choral music, or the evangelical theology) then all the people who like that kind of worship will flock there, but anyone who doesn't will turn round and get the heck out. So you are always going to appeal to some groups and not others.
People will often look at those who go there and think 'Are they people like me?' I suspect that younger people feel this particularly keenly as there are relatively few of this age group in churches anyway.
Looking at my own church in particular, it seems to attract those who like choral music, catholic/liberal theology and who don't mind getting up early on a Sunday morning. If you are keen on guitars, have black and white opinions and like to lie in after the night before then I suspect we're not going to see much of you!
--------------------
Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Vaticanchic
Shipmate
# 13869
|
Posted
What turns people (often Christians) away from churches? Think it through.
Trying to get in the main door & having to explain yourself to well-meaning sidepeople/greeters. Trying to prise enough books/service sheets off them for your whole party. Enduring an act of worship devoid of specific religious content. Listening to a sermon straight from Jerry Springer. Can't be bothered with any more...
--------------------
"Sink, Burn or Take Her a Prize"
Posts: 697 | From: UK | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
|
Posted
Clearly the things that turn people off about church are the things that I dislike in a church. And everyone would come to church if it was exactly the way I like it. Or perhaps not.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Rosa Winkel
Saint Anger round my neck
# 11424
|
Posted
I know plenty who assume that "the church" (by which they mean the Anglican church) is anti-women and anti-gay. Sadly there are reasons to believe both.
That doesn't speak for all non-churchgoers, but a substantial group. The word "hypocrite" gets used as well. Arsey comments by some Christians towards other Christians give proof to such a claim.
I actually believe that the style of worship doesn't matter for many people. It's about whether people come across as having something worth having.
Edit: As someone who used to work for a cathedral I can say that many cathedral members don't "dip in and out". The cathedral I worked at saw growth in regular attendance and connection. I put this down to forward-thinking clergy, good sermons and simply nice people in the congo.
[ 17. December 2012, 21:35: Message edited by: Rosa Winkel ]
--------------------
The Disability and Jesus "Locked out for Lent" project
Posts: 3271 | From: Wrocław | Registered: May 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ender's Shadow
Shipmate
# 2272
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
...It was not billed as a church, it had started as a few people meeting in someone's kitchen and had grown to over 100 people meeting in a gym by the time I found it.
Alas, the leader moved away, the guy he appointed as replacement was young an inexperienced and resorted authoritarianism, "you have to obey me." The whole thing quickly collapsed, within 3 weeks only 30 people attended, 6 weeks it was dead. The lesson I got out of that -- we don't know how to train people how to lead.
Viola would argue that 100 was far too big; the fact that it was in an institutional building rather than a house (he makes a big deal of the fact that the church met in homes in the first two centuries, NOT synagogue or temple like environments) makes this a no-no for him. He also argues for LESS direction from the front than your pattern offers. But equally he recognises the need for 'training' or at least an apprenticeship to raise up successors when the leader leaves, or the group splits, which is his ideal. But I'm pleased to hear that it was good while it lasted.
--------------------
Test everything. Hold on to the good.
Please don't refer to me as 'Ender' - the whole point of Ender's Shadow is that he isn't Ender.
Posts: 5018 | From: Manchester, England | Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Heavenly Anarchist
Shipmate
# 13313
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
At a cheese'n'wine before we even started going to the church we now attend, a total stranger from that church asked me "Have you been baptised in the Spirit?"
Maybe it's the Charismatic equivalent of "Do you come here often?" I can't imagine it encourages new blood.
When I was a clinic nursing sister the hospital manager asked me to have a few words with a new clerk as his constant refrain of ' Have you been washed in the blood of the lamb?' was freaking the other staff out.
I was an atheist until I was 25 and suddenly decided to investigate a spiritual dimension for my life and approached a Christian friend to go to her church. I was not previously turned off by church but completely indifferent to it, it having not featured in my life at all. I sang hymns at school but that was just singing. Church was completely alien to my life just as it still is to the majority of people on the council estate I grew up on.
--------------------
'I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.' Douglas Adams
Dog Activity Monitor
My shop
Posts: 2831 | From: Trumpington | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
If I get to be church 6 days a week outside the institution, how come I got scolded by the head clergy guy for volunteering with a charity instead of spending all my time on the institution's needs? It's the church institution that teaches, sometimes aggressively, that it's all about the institution, and the institution is all about Sunday morning.
Well, if it is as you say that it is, then that is not Christian. If the pope himself told me that I should not waste my time on charity, I would tell him to shove it where the sun don't shine. Try me, I sure would. I am, or at least try to be, a servant of the Lord, and pope, bishop and priest have my deepest respect and gratitude as servant of servants. But that's it. There is one Lord, and there ever only has been one man who is that.
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Church is a party? Fine, but people don't stick around for boring parties with boring DJs, and church is deadly boring.
Is it? Well, when I go to Church my Lord comes. He does not come big. He comes small. But Pange Lingua Gloriosi, I cannot really talk about that. Neither can I really talk about Our Lady looking at me across a sea of candles. If you have never had a word stretch across infinity, if you've never seen the smoke rising beyond, then what are you even doing in religion? But ... it is not mine to judge, as much as judgement rages in me. Just another demon to kill. But do get some religion. Please. It's worth the bullshit. Really. It ... just ... is.
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
But a major problem with any conversation about what's right or wrong with church is that those who like church just the way it is think there's something terribly wrong with anyone who disagrees. Those who are happy where they are too often cannot accept that others are legitimately unhappy and belong elsewhere.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif) I don't know how long ago I last enjoyed a mass that was fully to my liking. Six years worth of Sundays? More? And yet, what of it? Do this in memory of me, not have a great time. The very world is torn by some fool lifting grain produce. And I for one can sometimes see. Nothing, and nobody, can take this away from me. Get some old time religion, I say. It gives perspective. And really, if it does not wrench your guts, now and then, what are you doing it for? Accept no substitute. Sanctity is as boring as a knife's edge...
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
|
Posted
Depends on the church and the person staying away.
--------------------
Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Accept no substitute. Sanctity is as boring as a knife's edge...
Amen.
--------------------
Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lord Clonk
Shipmate
# 13205
|
Posted
I find the hymn-sandwich format that every church (except the Quakers and rare independent quirky churches) abides by to be quite exclusive for me. I neither resonate with it nor do I feel comfortable singing.
That's not quite enough to put me off church though. What puts me off is the other ways in which churches I've encountered are not inclusive. And by inclusive I mean proactively hospitable. I'm even in a situation where I'm applying for membership of the Society of Friends whilst at the same time wondering how much more I can put up with their current lack of inclusivity regarding myself. I know of one church in Glasgow (and I know of many) that might not be too problematic in this area (although definitely not perfect).
Another inclusivity issue, if we're defining a lack of inclusivity as leading to passively oppressing people, is the theological presumption that I have found in some churches (I can't generalise too much here, but I suspect it applies broadly). I was at a church for three years and I found that people still assumed my theology to be equivalent to the general theology of that church, when it actually deviated hugely. Whilst it wasn't by any stretch a cold congregation at all, this felt very isolating and oppressive. I find the Quakers refreshing in this sense, since you can presume very little.
Another issue I had with many of the churches I've encountered is only the odd nod to social justice (and this is overwhelmingly a very safe and easy form of social justice). This doesn't make sense to my understanding of the gospel and it also makes it difficult for me to believe that what is being said and done is worship.
Silence allocated during public prayers is usually not even close to being anything like enough, and when it is it's so surprising that the only thing you can think of is trying to work out when the silence will end.
I'm not claiming that these are many people's issues, but personal experience seems pretty key to a thread like this, and to get a full picture you need some of the less common experiences attested to too. These are things that deter me from almost all the churches I've encountered, and it's only because I've encountered so many that I've managed to find one or two exceptions to one or two of these points. I'm sure there are a number of churches I've not encountered that tick such things as the social justice box, but if I've struggled so hard to find such churches, it seems reasonable to suspect that it will be similarly difficult for a fair number of other people who may be much less perseverant than myself.
Posts: 267 | From: Glasgow | Registered: Nov 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
|
Posted
quote:
Originally Posted by deano:
All I am putting forward is that we should try the same method, reduce the debate to a simple sound bite that can get through the media. Perhaps the CofE needs to hire a media relations expert to get Justin Welby into Hello or onto Loose Women, and to train him to get his message across in a 10-second clip. Why don't we get "our" message out there in a way that the people we want to reach are listening to?
I think the 10 second clip is the hard part. It's a joke I heard once in seminary, that the trouble with sound theology is that it doesn't lend itself to easy soundbytes.
[ 17. December 2012, 23:20: Message edited by: Bullfrog. ]
--------------------
Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Hilda of Whitby
Shipmate
# 7341
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
IngoB
Seconded... I come from somewhere completely different to IngoB on the Christian spectrum, but yeah...
You beat me to it, Stejjie.
Great post, IngoB.
--------------------
"Born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad."
Posts: 412 | From: Nickel City | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
If you have never had a word stretch across infinity, if you've never seen the smoke rising beyond, then what are you even doing in religion?
Touch infinity! Oh yes!
But not in a formal church service. God is amazing, church is boring. I come home after an hour and a quarter of formal church irritable, and need most of an hour alone with God to get back any sense of God really existing.
Church is an anti-icon for me, it disconnects me from God or any interest in God. It took hanging around the Ship for me to slowly accept that some people really do see God through the formal event. Still puzzles me, but it just shows that humans beings are truly varied and that includes varied in how different ones best connect to God.
I have mentioned before the book spiritual pathways that talks about different personality types needing different, sometimes opposite, ways to connecting to God. He says no one approach to doing church will work well for more than 1/3rd of the people nor work partially for more than 2/3rds.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
the 10 second clip is the hard part. It's a joke I heard once in seminary, that the trouble with sound theology is that it doesn't lend itself to easy soundbytes.
How about lots of 10 second sound bites, rotate them once a month. "Love your neighbor," for example. "Do good to those who harm you." "Give away your extra stuff to those in need."
In book writing circles we say if you can't explain what it's about in 30 seconds, you either don't have a clear focus yet, or you are too hung up on details.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
There does seem to be a lack of young people in more traditional forms of church. I can't help wondering if those burnt out by evangelicalism are rejecting church altogether and not trying different kinds. I know myself (as a post-evangelical) that I was near that at one stage. I know some people have commented about trad services being boring and stifling but in all honesty I've been far more stifled by evangelical churches.
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
the 10 second clip is the hard part. It's a joke I heard once in seminary, that the trouble with sound theology is that it doesn't lend itself to easy soundbytes.
How about lots of 10 second sound bites, rotate them once a month. "Love your neighbor," for example. "Do good to those who harm you." "Give away your extra stuff to those in need."
In book writing circles we say if you can't explain what it's about in 30 seconds, you either don't have a clear focus yet, or you are too hung up on details.
Except as has been very well established, those virtues are not unique to Christianity and it is disrespectful to all kinds of people to claim them as uniquely Christian. And if I can get these virtues outside of the church, and if folks in the church often fall short of these virtues*, then how do they draw people to church?
* Which is something everyone does, but that's another thread.
--------------------
Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
There does seem to be a lack of young people in more traditional forms of church.
I just yesterday bumped into the concept that today's kids have different brains than we do, and take their digital brains (trained by 10000 hours of video games by age 15) into analog schools, and don't connect. *IF* there is something to that theory, it would also affect the ability to connect to church, yes?
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
There does seem to be a lack of young people in more traditional forms of church.
I just yesterday bumped into the concept that today's kids have different brains than we do, and take their digital brains (trained by 10000 hours of video games by age 15) into analog schools, and don't connect. *IF* there is something to that theory, it would also affect the ability to connect to church, yes?
Sorry, instead of 'traditional' I should have meant 'liturgical' perhaps - I meant that I see plenty of young people in evangelical churches, just not that many in other kinds of churches. I mean I would consider myself a young person at 23 and have no problems connecting to my Anglo-Catholic church, but I'm not sure if I count as a young person or not.
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
bib
Shipmate
# 13074
|
Posted
People need different kinds of churches at different times in their lives. The sort of happy-clappy service I attended as a teenager is something I now avoid like the plague, preferring a highly liturgical Anglo-Catholic service. There is nothing wrong with either style of service at the right time in our lives. The difficulty as I see it is that there have been attempts to force these groups together into something which appeals to neither of them, so nobody wants to participate. I am very happy in my current church, but if it changed too dramatically I would probably not go any more.
--------------------
"My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring"
Posts: 1307 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
If you have never had a word stretch across infinity, if you've never seen the smoke rising beyond, then what are you even doing in religion?
Touch infinity! Oh yes!
But not in a formal church service. God is amazing, church is boring. I come home after an hour and a quarter of formal church irritable, and need most of an hour alone with God to get back any sense of God really existing.
Church is an anti-icon for me, it disconnects me from God or any interest in God. It took hanging around the Ship for me to slowly accept that some people really do see God through the formal event. Still puzzles me, but it just shows that humans beings are truly varied and that includes varied in how different ones best connect to God.
I have mentioned before the book spiritual pathways that talks about different personality types needing different, sometimes opposite, ways to connecting to God. He says no one approach to doing church will work well for more than 1/3rd of the people nor work partially for more than 2/3rds.
Interesting stuff here. I can find transcendence both inside and outside church, but when church is very discursive, it tends to squash it. As I get older, silence is the thing, and the silences in church are few, and often get squished to about 2 seconds. I guess it's embarrassing.
But then it's unpredictable. I often notice that in the eucharist an odd phrase will suddenly catch at me, and the old magic flows again, as do the tears. And the music also. But this can happen in the supermarket also. It's all one.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Stejjie
Shipmate
# 13941
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
In book writing circles we say if you can't explain what it's about in 30 seconds, you either don't have a clear focus yet, or you are too hung up on details.
Indeed, and most sermon books I've read say something along the lines of "If you can't state the theme of your sermon in one sentence, it's not ready."
But there's a lot more to the book than that 30-second snippet and there's a lot more to a sermon (or service) than just that one sentence. Just because you should be able to reduce the book or sermon to a short snippet, doesn't mean you shouldn't have the whole thing as well.
I still can't help thinking that leo's post was on the money here. Even if we had the most engaging, relevant, pithy sermons; even if we had the most perfect churchmanship where liturgy (if that's your bag) was done well; even if every church had the most accomplished musicians in whichever style they choose - people p[robably still wouldn't come. Why not? Because church just isn't on their radar, it's just not something they'd think about as a possibility. And if we do want people to come to church (and I do have in the back of my mind that getting bums on seats isn't the be-all-and-end-all), then that's the first obstacle before we start judging sermons, liturgies, music etc.
--------------------
A not particularly-alt-worshippy, fairly mainstream, mildly evangelical, vaguely post-modern-ish Baptist
Posts: 1117 | From: Urmston, Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Heavenly Anarchist
Shipmate
# 13313
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
I still can't help thinking that leo's post was on the money here. Even if we had the most engaging, relevant, pithy sermons; even if we had the most perfect churchmanship where liturgy (if that's your bag) was done well; even if every church had the most accomplished musicians in whichever style they choose - people p[robably still wouldn't come. Why not? Because church just isn't on their radar, it's just not something they'd think about as a possibility. And if we do want people to come to church (and I do have in the back of my mind that getting bums on seats isn't the be-all-and-end-all), then that's the first obstacle before we start judging sermons, liturgies, music etc.
I agree, church just isn't a part of people's lives any more.
The new converts at my own church appear to come via Alpha meetings in pubs in Cambridge, community work on a local council estate (intensive weekends tidying, repairing, gardening etc, and is ecumenical) and friendship. This is what gets new people through the doors though whether they like our worship style may well influence whether they then decide to stay with us or go to a more traditional church. They need the church to be relevant to them which is why community work is so effective.
I think what keeps people afterwards is the strong sense of community within the church so that they feel wanted.
--------------------
'I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.' Douglas Adams
Dog Activity Monitor
My shop
Posts: 2831 | From: Trumpington | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
ButchCassidy
Shipmate
# 11147
|
Posted
Yes.
Really, really loving this thread! (would be great if there were a stickied thread in eg All Saints where people talk about what their churches are doing well atm) and would be especially good to read how people have engaged with their communities,
i.e. how they have 'evangelised' the wider public without soapboxing.
Posts: 104 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
There does seem to be a lack of young people in more traditional forms of church.
I just yesterday bumped into the concept that today's kids have different brains than we do, and take their digital brains (trained by 10000 hours of video games by age 15) into analog schools, and don't connect. *IF* there is something to that theory, it would also affect the ability to connect to church, yes?
Heh. They have had different experiences to what we had, but it's naff all to do with "digital" against "analogue", except in the most basic sense that the world today has a lot of digital electronics in it.
There indeed is a shortage of young people at the liturgical end of the candle; that remains true in my neck of the woods for any value of "young" that is less than 60. As I suggested earlier and Leo put in stronger terms, people are not so much "put off" church as never come near enough it to have a reaction, positive or negative. It's not what people like them do. Our elderly congregations are the remains of the generations where churchgoing was a normal thing to do. When they die, we should not assume that today's middle aged folk will mysteriously fill their empty pews.
There are at least four questions in this thread, and they don't necessarily have the same answers
1. What puts people off of church?
2. Why is church not on the radar for most people in society today?
3. What might attract people to church if they do come near the door?
4. What ensures that people within the church remain adequately engaged and matured?
[ 18. December 2012, 12:34: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
--------------------
Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
I think one factor is that church is not perceived as the only way to find some kind of spiritual or religious connection. In fact, for some people, it is off-putting.
So there are people who just not interested in any kind of numinous connection; and there are people who are, but not via church.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ButchCassidy:
talk about what their churches are doing well atm) and would be especially good to read how people have engaged with their communities,
Start those threads! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ronald Binge
Shipmate
# 9002
|
Posted
Hmm, where to start? The bullet point list also seems best to express this.
- Having as a "treat" (the PPs words) a bunch of ultra right wingers attempting to persuade the whole of the congregation to write to local TDs that abortion legislation was unnecessary as women "were always safe" in Ireland ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
- Sunday masses wholly focused on families with children in the local Catholic schools
- The stony silence of an Irish Catholic congregation faced with anything remotely musical
- The scramble across the pews to get to the middle aisle on time to get any of the Most Precious Blood (amazingly for an Irish Catholic church, the local shack does the chalice during the week only, but not a lot)
- Hymn books and an empty hymn board, so I'm clueless as to what the main choir are doing
- The parish magazine, the bulk of which is lifted from the EWTN website and consequently portrays Catholicism in splendid isolation and absolute correctness in relation to every other belief, ever. Added patronisation of "non-Catholics" a bonus
- Any parish meeting, which is policed for any dissent from the official line by a voluble minority of zealots
- The sheer wierdness of theories by same zealots who think nothing about buttonholing someone about the influence of "freemasons" and other conspiracy theories
To recycle a well known Irish phrase, these days I keep my head down like a Larne Catholic.
[ 18. December 2012, 13:27: Message edited by: Ronald Binge ]
--------------------
Older, bearded (but no wiser)
Posts: 477 | From: Brexit's frontline | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
roybart
Shipmate
# 17357
|
Posted
Several posters have made the good point that people need and respond positively to different aspects of religious life at different stages of life. I agree with this but ...
... I'd like to speak up for those of us who are in many ways quite similar in late adulthood to we were as young people.
I've always loved, even as a child, those brief glimpses of transcendence that IngoB talks about. For me, this has consistently focused on the Eucharist. I've spent, on and off, more than half of my adult life outside churches. The only aspect of church life that I found myself missing in those periods was access to the Eucharist and the chance to meditate on its meaning in human life. Always, I found myself dropping into certain city churches for a time of private meditation and often wordless prayer.
I've always appreciated silence, "alone time," and retreating from the omnipresence of chatter. As a kid, I rather liked being sentenced to "sit in the corner." Most liturgies are, imo, non-stopped talking of some sort or other -- "we" prayers, Bible readings, creeds, sermons, announcements, chatting during the peace, etc. An advantage of church in non-English-speaking places is that, since I don't understand the literal meaning of the words, the sounds become almost musical in a non-literal way. I include most ordinary church music in the "talk" category. I'm not talking about great religious music superbly sung. So a time many Episcopal hymns especially those derived from the late 18th to early-19th centuries, when the quality of English versification was at low point and hymn music was not much better, strike me as being rather commonplace and sad. I do like to sing many kinds of music, but I did not grow up in a this particular tradition and take very little pleasure in it.
A few years ago, I returned one more time to church, worshipping in a small, very appealing Episcopal church. I like the people and the rites, and admire the clergy very much. I decided to make a real effort to focus on the elements that brought me closer to God and to try very hard to ignore those worship and fellowship elements that have gotten me in trouble in the past. My goal was to stop arguing with worship elements I do not agree with and/or do not like.
My salvation in these matters has turned out to be ... silicon EAR PLUGS.
Somehow, these allow me to tune out large chunks of Bible readings (especially a lot of OT and Paul), while remaining conscious of what is being read. Amazingly, once I stop arguing with the reading in my head, I actually find myself connecting -- and thinking about -- phrases or sections that turn out to mean quite a lot to me. The same holds for sermons. I've learned how to meditate during sermons, but still seem able to pull myself back when I hear something (a term, a phrase, a sentence) that I realize I need to hear and think about.
For me, earplugs, -- discreetly and carefully used -- have made "church" less stressful, more pleasurable, and much more spiritually edifying.
--------------------
"The consolations of the imaginary are not imaginary consolations."
-- Roger Scruton
Posts: 547 | From: here | Registered: Sep 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
bad man
Apprentice
# 17449
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
There are at least four questions in this thread, and they don't necessarily have the same answers
1. What puts people off of church?
2. Why is church not on the radar for most people in society today?
3. What might attract people to church if they do come near the door?
4. What ensures that people within the church remain adequately engaged and matured?
In answer to 1. and 2., I suggest three causes for the long term decline in church attendance across all denominations in the UK in the last 100 years or so.
1. We are less deferential than we were and we are more resistant to hierarchy. The Church presents itself less hierarchically than it did (although the very word derives from the Greek for priesthood) but our teaching and prayers still emphasise God as "Lord" and "King" and "Almighty" and talk of "the Kingdom".
2. All membership organisations are in decline, including trade unions and political parties. Churches depend on regular attenders to keep going. People are less willing to sign up in this way than they once were; whereas more impersonal spaces like cathedrals which have a bigger paid staff (including clergy and non clergy) seem more suitable for drop-in, one-off, no-commitment visitors. This may explain why cathedrals are currently bucking the general trend of attendance decline experienced in parishes.
3. A central attraction of Christianity since the first Easter Sunday has been its teaching about death or, to be precise, life after death and the hope of resurrection and a life in a world to come. Fear of death and an unwillingness to accept oblivion after death have strongly motivated Christian converts and devout Christians for 2,000 years. But we are much less exposed to death in this country than we were and much less preoccupied by it. Infant mortality has slumped; our wars have, since 1945, been fought far away and by a professional rather than a generally conscripted army and it most people expect to live to a ripe old age and don't care to think about death at all for most of their lives.
No doubt the church can make a bad situation worse with boring services, or a toxic attitude to women or homosexuals, and I wish it wouldn't, but these longer term factors also need addressing.
Posts: 49 | From: Diocese of Guildford | Registered: Nov 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
