Podcast Episode #342
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Regular church attendance has waned in recent years as the commitment level from members has dropped. Today, we address five major reasons for this drop in attendance.
Some highlights from today’s episode include:
- Is the church so important that you need to gather with other believers on a regular basis? Yes.
- It is extremely difficult to make disciples of church members if you don’t know where they are.
- Culture is not causing churches to compromise. Churches are compromising and culture is saying it’s okay.
- The way you bring people into a church will show them the expected commitment level for the future.
- Those who are leaders in the church set the example of commitment for the rest of the church.
- If leaders in your church sporadically show up, the rest of the members will see that and follow suit.
- Unfortunately, there are a significant number of Christians who don’t see church attendance as important.
The five reasons we discuss are:
- We are minimizing the importance of the local church.
- We worship the idols of activities.
- We take a lot of vacations from church.
- We do not have high expectations of our members.
- We make infrequent attendees leaders in our churches.
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Feedback
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I read your article on why people’s attendance to church are waning. I wonder, could it be that another one of the reasons could be that people are not attending church as much because the information that they are receiving in the hour that they spend in a church service is inferior to the online podcasts and broadcasts, and blogs, and websites far exceed that of what they are getting when they gather together?
Perhaps you have already covered this topic, but I think that this probably one of the biggest reasons why people are voting with their feet.
We have indeed addressed that issue at ThomRainer.com. Thanks.
A good analysis of some of the many aspects of the problem of Dropout believers, but the real question is how can churches and active Believers turn this trend around for good?
See http://www.huntersofheharvest.org for the answer.
In my opinion, I believe you hit on something so true and valuable that if the church misses it they will continue to see a decline in their attendance. Culture is not at fault, the church is. Over the years, so little emphasis has been placed on the importance of being “the church corporately” and too much emphasis on the “church individually.” The result, individuals deciding that they can be at church no matter where they are. Thus, the soccer field, softball diamond, and football arena have replaced the church Meeting house. Additionally, the constant borage of “don’t judge me” cultural Christians, make for a weak, ineffective, and shrinking church attendance. I would submit that the time will come when people who decided that the worlds bleachers are more important than the church pew, will find themselves sitting the bench when Jesus returns.
Dr. Dale – I know exactly what you mean by “the church corporately” vs “church individually”. You certainly are not preaching “church individually”, but based on your detailed description, you are well acquainted with saints in your church giving higher priority to life outside “the church Meeting house.” So the problem is not merely a matter of “so little emphasis”.
There is a much different and deeper problem. The scriptures specifically call for a very different practice of “corporate church” than what has been pushed for 500 years. It’s in the same Bible we both read. But as I talk to Pastors about this face to face, they don’t get it. I realize it’s a paradigm shift but we should be used to that since we have all turned from darkness to the light. Leaders should be looking for Biblically driven transformation, but they are not. I wish I could help, but it’s not valued by those in clergy status.
Related to number 4: the platform-centered worship and the staff-centered ministry communicate that the “audience” members are only needed as seat and offering plate fillers.
I don’t disagree with you, but platform-centered worship and staff centered ministry developed because fewer and fewer lay people are willing to commit their time and energy to the church. For example: people may bemoan the loss of choirs, but choirs have in large part gone away because people simply quit coming to rehearsal.
Christopher, I think we need to make a distinction between platform-CENTERED worship and platform-LED worship. There are ways for a small group (or an individual) to lead from the platform while engaging the congregation. It is not really necessary for the members of the congregation to ascend the platform to worship corporately. There are many members of congregations who want to actively participate in the worship service but do not want attention drawn to them. (There are also a number of people who are physically unable to ascend the platform, but that is a different issue.)
Similarly, there is a difference between staff-centered ministry and staff-led ministry. Expecting all members of the congregation to engage in all aspects of ministry without leadership is a bit overwhelming (and without scriptural basis). Ears make terrible eyes in the Body of Christ.
Dean, you hit the nail on the head.
Then add in watered down lyrics, local bar music, and man centered preaching and many folks are finding they really CAN be the church and DO worship better at the lake. When those never reached for salvation, just brought into the church to have a “God moment” find the next big thing, they are gone.
And if the saints left the sacrilege behind long ago, another church closes.
I’m hearing quite a lot lately that the way we “do church” doesn’t seem to be what some people think is what God intended it to be. So I ask them what they think He intended and mostly they say “I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s suppose to be like this.” And, by the way, this is coming from both those who still attend and those who have stopped. I admit, I too have been frustrated with the over institutionalization of the church. At the end of the day, I just encourage people to be a part of the answer. If we’re not participating in the answer then perhaps we are a part of the problem. Too cliché, perhaps, but that’s why we’re here, to discuss ideas. Thank you Thom for your work and being a part of the answer.
Thank you, Bert.
If we spent as much time praying about the problem as we do complaining about it, and we humble ourselves in repentance, God might actually hear us and send Revival. It starts with us in leadership. Thanks Thom for making us aware of our struggle. It does help me to know that my church is not the only one struggling. But clearly, the answer is that we get our hearts right and seek to lead our congregations to do the same.
Well said, Darrell.
What may be behind this idea of the church as a “scattered people” – at least in part – may be a misunderstanding of what it means to be missional. We gather to praise God, to hear his Word, to pray, and to break bread together and then we scatter tto be salt and light in the world and to witness to Jesus Christ.
If you read as many articles as I do and listen to as many pod casts as I do, you are also going to encounter articles and podcasts that down play the importance of church attendance. What these articles and podcasts are saying is not that attending church is unimportant but being a healthy church involves more than filling pews. Here again these articles and podcasts are susceptible to being misunderstood.
A third factor that may be contributing to less frequent church attendance is the Internet, the social media, and the electronic church. One of the results of our increased interaction through electronic means is the devaluation of face-to-face contact in our relationships.
I also suspect that cultural factors are contributing to this problem such as the belief that one’s religion or spirituality is a private matter. This belief not only puts a damper on sharing one’s faith with others but it also can discourage church attendance. Religion or spirituality is no longer seen as a corporate activity.
At the same time we are seeing in an increase in the number of non-faith related groups whose activities have become a substitute for church attendance.
I regularly have conversations on the topic of being a part of a Christian fellowship – church, small group, etc. – and regularly attending its gatherings and participating in its corporate life as a fellowship with a friend of mine – a former pastor who is no longer active in ministry. He maintains that one can be a Christian without being a part of a Christian fellowship. He appeals to the tradition of hermits, or solitaries, in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches in support of his view.
I usually remind of what the author of Hebrews says about neglecting to meet with one’s fellow Christians. I remind him of the story of the pastor who was visiting a church member who had stopped attending church services. The two were sitting before a blazing fire in the church member’s home. The pastor took a poker and raked apart the fire.The two in silence watched the embers die one by one. The pastor then raked the cold embers back together again and they blazed up into a fire. The church member broke the silence, “I’ll be at church next Sunday,” he said. Sunday came and he was back in his usual pew. He did not miss a Sunday after that.
I remind my friend that when we try to practice our faith in isolation from our fellow Christians, it will grow weaker and weaker. We become easy victims for the devil just like sheep are easy victims for wolves when they graze at the edge of the flock or stray away from the flock.
Christians need each other to reinforce and strength each others’ faith. God gives spiritual gifts – manifestations of the Holy Spirit – to the church for the up-building of the whole body. To truly exercise those gifts we need to be a part of a Christian fellowship. We also need to be a part of a Christian fellowship to obey our Lord’s’ love commands. The implications are that we cannot really be a disciple of Jesus apart from such a fellowship. The Christian faith is a faith that we practice with other Christians and not in isolation.
Among the factors which may be contributing to less frequent church attendance is that volunteers are not expected to serve every Sunday but only on Sundays that they are scheduled. The idea behind rotating volunteers is not to overuse them and to reduce volunteer burnout but it can inadvertently convey the idea to the volunteers that they need not attend church on those Sundays that they are not on scheduled.
We as evangelicals also emphasize the importance of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. In doing so we may also be inadvertently conveying the idea that it is not necessary to live out this relationship as a part of a Christian fellowship.
These are not the only factors that I suspect are contributing to the problem of less frequent church attendance. The factors behind this problem merit further investigation. Identifying these factors would be a major step toward developing strategies to meet this challenge. It is not good for the local church. It is also not good for those who are attending church less frequently. Many of those who have become “nones” started moving in direction by attending church less frequently before they dropped out of church altogether. This is certainly true of the college students in that category with whom I am acquainted.
I was with you all the way…until you used the term “up-building”.
An after thought – when wolves or even dogs attack a flock of sheep, the first thing that they do is scatter the flock. This enables the wolves or dogs to identify and pick off the weakest sheep.
While posting a link to this podcast on my blog, another possible contributing factor to the problem of less frequent attendance came to mind. It is the displacement of corporate worship in many evangelical churches by what may be described as “parallel worship.” Parallel worship is similar to parallel play observed in small children. They may be playing in the same room, side by side, but they are not playing together. They are engaged in solitary play. Parallel worship occurs in evangelical and mainline churches when the vocalists in the band carry the main burden of the singing God’s praise in a worship gathering and the congregation either sings along with the vocalists or listens to the vocalists. The singing of God’s praise, however, is not a corporate activity with the congregation joining their voices as one. Indeed the members of the congregation who are singing along with the vocalists cannot be heard because the voices of the vocalists and the sound of the instrumentalists have been amplified to the point that the voices of the members of the congregation who are singing along with the vocalists are drowned out. The immediate result is that the members of the congregation, while they are in the same room, are engaging in solitary worship. The long-term result is that the people who do attend worship gatherings do so not to join with their fellow Christians in singing God’s praise but to listen to the band praising God. When they grow tired of listening to the band or to the preacher or to both, they are likely to attend less frequently, go in search of a church with a more exciting band and/or preacher, or stop going to church altogether. When parallel worship displaces corporate worship, those who do attend worship gatherings also get the message that their presence really is not necessary.
Something like this phenomena happened in the Medieval Church. The clergy and the choir did the singing; the congregations engaged in their private devotions or chatted quietly in the back of the church. The major difference between the Middle Ages and today is that people had no choice but attend the local parish church. They were required to attend church and the Medieval Church through a system of church courts enforced this requirement. They were also forbidden to travel to another parish in order to attend church there. The roads were also poor and travel was difficult. Only the nobility and the wealthier merchants had horses. Everyone else walked.
Robin is on to something.
I’ll add that Pastorcentrism, fueled in a dysfunctional feedback loop between the ego-need of pastors to be needed and the passivity of parishioners… is killing the church. This feedback loop happens when equipping the saints for ministry is abandoned for a consumptive model of being the church.
Christendom in the U.S.A. has delivered a passive model of consumption where a few individuals exercise their spiritual gifts at a worship gathering. Congregants leave and face their week alone, content with being good moral agents who don’t commit any of the big sins. Throughout the week, pastors tend to the pastoral needs of the flock and they “spin plates on sticks” to keep programs in play. A simpler church is needed.
Pastorcentrism, in the minds of Gen-Xers, Boomers and the WWII Generations is part of the expected church culture. Pastorcentrism is, well, central. To test this premise, try to move a Christendom culture to look more like an Acts 2:42-46 model of being a disciple-making community. You’ll see glazed eyes and hesitation.
In Christendom, success is measured in bucks, butts, and buildings. How do you measure ministry effectiveness and health in a distributive model of being the church (smaller house fellowships) that engages everyone’s spiritual gifts in the act of building each other up and blessing people beyond their church fellowship?
As for Millenials, they may very well be the hope of the church because of their openness and desire for a way of being the church that is more akin to Acts 2. They don’t see or experience this in U.S. Christendom so, they look for
community elsewhere.
We are in a post-Christendom era. The local church needs to be more of a mission post that gathers people in face-to-face communities that are engaged the mission of making disciples who, in turn, make disciples. This requires the exercise of spiritual gifts in service to building up the body as an authentic demonstration of the New Commandment and the Great Commission… all in service to being obedient to the Great Commandment.
This is where Simple Church has a lot to offer… a way of deconstructing Christendom models of being the local church and getting back to the “why” of being the church… making disciples.
To make disciples is to be a disciple. Anything less is an adventureless journey of low expectations and therefore… commitment.
If we’re talking about church attendance on Sunday morning (or primary worship service). I think there are so MANY activities going on with minimal communication and understanding of how to prioritize them for the average person. Thus, if a woman goes to Bible study one day, a man to Saturday morning men’s prayer meeting, and kids to Wed evening Awana and weekend Upwards program (which mom and dad have to staff), it’s easy to think you’ve done your church thing. Not important or necessary to go to church on Sunday. Pressure to attend, lead, and financially support all the church activities on top of one’s community, work and family responsibilities have led to fuzziness when it comes to WHY and WHAT we do.
I love greeting people coming in to church, and I’ve noticed I don’t go times when I am not greeting or I will go and hang outside the sanctuary where others linger. Mostly I’m guessing, I go for the fellowship.
There is very little fellowship by actually attending the service. We have the meet n greet in the sanctuary that seldom lasts more than a minute. We seem more compelled to see how many people we can shake hands with than actually having a short conversation with one person.
During the music portion I at times can hardly hear myself sing let alone people around me. And I can’t say there is fellowship during the sermon. I actually listen to the sermon better when I listen online midweek.
I’ve set up internet banking so our bank automatically sends our church a tithe weekly whether we are there or not. It is a joy to me to be faithful in giving, even if we are not there physically.
The best part of Sunday morning is finding someone to go to dinner with after service and reconnect our lives, how/what we are doing in life.
For what it is worth, when away from home, whether for business or pleasure we like finding a church to attend that fits into our schedule. I like to think those of you who have never experienced church outside your denomination are missing a treat in getting to meet different members of the body of Christ, yet still brothers/sisters in Christ.
Bottom line, church attendance is not as important to me, as I used to think;. But meeting with other Christians, still is. Whether it’s with the men at work I have Bible Study with, or my mid-week connect group, or the men I have coffee with before work where we will at times pray for each other needs. Where two or more are gathered together in His name…
I think there’s another reason to add to the list: churches simply don’t talk about obedience as an element of believing. I think this is especially true in my denomination (I’m Lutheran) because our heritage was a revolt against legalism and a “righteousness by the Law,” but I suspect it’s broader than just my Church. The Commandment clearly says “Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy,” but we are reluctant to say “Attend church. Because God says so.” Ideally, people shouldn’t go to church ONLY out of obedience; but it still is something we ought to teach.