Last night, over Easter, my wife and I went to a rural church in Manchester, TN with my parents for the Sunday evening service. The attendance was half of Sunday mornings with only one other young couple besides us. For the past few decades (from my understanding) attendance has been decreasing for other services. More and more young adults choose not to come back during the week for whatever reason and this has become a problem in the eyes of many older Christians. I often wonder if there is a problem, if so who's problem is it, and what exactly is the problem?
All of my life, I have always known of two types of Christians: the gold star church member attending all services and Bible classes and the erring brother or sister that only attends on Sunday mornings. Being the son of a southern preacher, I have constantly heard problems local congregations had regarding attendance on Sunday nights and Wednesday Bible Studies. "Why will they not come?" "What do we need to do to increase return attendance during the week?" Such questions have always been asked that assume only going to church services once a week is a sin according to Hebrews 10.25 "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some
is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day
approaching." (KJV)
I would love to go back in time to see church life when two services each Sunday where becoming mandatory. The second service on Sundays were added during a time when a lot of people had to start working in factories and during harvest. This allowed everyone a chance to have communion, you only went to one service. I can imagine going to both services became a fad in certain key areas (Nashville, Memphis, Huntsville, etc.). Later on this might have caught on and some seemed to develop a "holier than thou" attitude because they attended more Church services. (Adhering to the notion that just showing up for Church makes you holy and spiritual). Before you know it, it was decreed that you have to come for all services by authorization of the verse quoted above. I want to see some early documentation of this, so this is educated speculation.
The individuals not coming back during the week is not unnecessarily a problem with them. They just don't feel the need to return. If there is no reason to do something, why do it? Or why not go completely go all the way. Acts 2.46 gives us an apostolic example that we could interpret as action we need to fulfill. The Bible says here that we must meet every day, attending temple, eating together, being glad, and generous. How many of us do just one of these every day. I don't really know of anyone that is following by this, so we must all be erring Christians?
As a practical answer to this problem, I say have stuff offered at the Church building every day. People can come and go as they like. My wife even threw in that people should actually live at the Church building. One good thing about the Christian Student Center at UTC was that it was open almost 24/7 due to the fact that people lived there.
Could you imagine going over to your local church at 2AM on a Friday night to get a late night snack and see what other people are up to? What do you think?
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Posted by loudsalt at April 9, 2007 7:09 PMHere are some thoughts on church attrition:
Here: http://www.pensitoreview.com/2007/04/06/why-i-wont-be-in-church-on-easter
and Here: http://www.pensitoreview.com/2007/04/08/boycott-your-church
I am a Christian, but I haven't been to church in more than a year. There's nothing there for me. They point fingers and talk about judgement and politics. Nobody talks about the real truth of Jesus anymore.
Posted by: Chrissy at April 9, 2007 8:44 PMyeah, i'm a mechanic, but i haven't worked on a car in over a year. they just don't make cars like they used to, so i just don't work on them.
Posted by: daniel at April 10, 2007 8:28 AMA better comparison might be, "I'm a mechanic, but I haven't been to the auto shop in over a year. Instead, my friends have been bringing their cars over to my house and we've been working on them together." I don't see any problems with that.
This brings back memories of having to mosh to loud music in my bedroom before Sunday night meetings, just to get up the desire to go and stay awake for the meeting. I agree, if there's no reason to go, then why go. That doesn't mean it's ok to be a Christian and not meet with other Christians. It just means that other times, places, and ways are probably much better than many of the current offerings. Speaking of which, I haven't been to a church building in the last 7 months except for one when we were traveling.
Posted by: Dale at April 13, 2007 11:51 PM