CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

PostPosted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 2:44 pm**

I ran into this article today, and thought it was an interesting perspective:

Linked Article wrote:Despite a recent uptick, church attendance numbers have been declining steadily in both the United States and Europe. Explanations for the trend range from the child sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic church to the antimodern cultural outlooks of fundamentalist and conservative evangelical denominations. But Richard Beck, a professor and experimental psychologist at Abilene Christian University, has advanced a novel theory: He argues that the internet, and specifically the social-networking site Facebook, has eroded the sense of community that people have typically obtained via church membership.

In an essay posted on his blog titled, "How Facebook Killed the Church," Beck writes that the notion of a more porous, just-in-time digital community has taken strongest root among the so-called Generation Y folk--people born in the 80s and 90s who are also referred to as "Millennials"--who obsessively use social media on mobile devices.

Beck originally published the essay last year, to little public notice. In recent days, however, social media observers revived it, passing it around on sites like Twitter, Tumblr, and, somewhat ironically, Facebook. He writes:
So why has mobile social computing affected church attendance? Well, if church has always been kind of lame and irritating why did people go in the first place? Easy, social relationships. Church has always been about social affiliation. You met your friends, discussed your week, talked football, shared information about good schools, talked local politics, got the scoop, and made social plans ("Let's get together for dinner this week!"). Even if you hated church you could feel lonely without it. Particularly with the loss of "third places" in America.

But Millennials are in a different social situation. They don't need physical locations for social affiliation. They can make dinner plans via text, cell phone call or Facebook. In short, the thing that kept young people going to church, despite their irritations, has been effectively replaced. You don't need to go to church to stay connected or in touch. You have an iPhone.
Sure, Millennials will report that the "reason" they are leaving the church is due to its perceived hypocrisy or shallowness. My argument is that while this might be the proximate cause the more distal cause is social computing. Already connected Millennials have the luxury to kick the church to the curb. This is the position of strength that other generations did not have. We fussed about the church but, at the end of the day, you went to stay connected. For us, church was Facebook!

While it is hard to dispute the general reasoning in Beck's argument, it's not only millennials who are maintaining relationships and building communities online. In fact, a new website logs the sinister reach of the elder set in social media bearing the eloquent name "Oh Crap. My parents joined Facebook." And in full recognition that we are in the midst of a bona fide trend here, "Saturday Night Live" produced a parody commercial for a new product called "D*** It, My Mom is on Facebook!"

Meanwhile, Beck's own blog, titled "Experimental Theology," hosts a wide range of comments on the relationship between devotion and social media. One provocative comment suggested that the core concept of divine punishment--a key motivation behind many past generations of church observance--just doesn't resonate with a generation of media users conditioned to customized online experiences.

"Gen Y'ers don't have the same type of fear of God as earlier generations... and therein lies the problem for the church. The church has not succeeded in roping the Gen Y'ers in with obligation and guilt and fear to their thing," commenter "Heather G" wrote. "Gen Y'ers feel un-obligated to anything that doesn't fit their goals, their dreams for the world, etc. If church isn't contextually purposeful to them, they have no compulsion to show up....whereas earlier generations would keep going to churches even if they felt no connection to the church whatsoever, simply because they feared a God who they had been taught REQUIRED that they go to church - they felt they 'HAD TO.'"

While I think that he is on to something here, I also think that he is doing a bit of scapegoating. If the incredibly impersonal Facebook is actually a real threat to a church's* feeling of community, then maybe there is a deeper underlying problem with that church community. Online interaction, especially something as impersonal as Facebook, just isn't a replacement for real socializing for most people.

At the end of the article, he does make a really good point about "young people" not feeling the need to go to church if there is no purpose to going. I know that for myself, it is incredibly difficult to find a church that I want to attend. Between worship music that is... not for me, sermons that don't offer me any intellectual stimulation, and fellowship that I get from other socializing, I don't really have a whole lot of motivation to go.

I'm not saying that's okay. I am sure that church is supposed to be more than those three things, but I have yet to encounter it in the churches I have attended.

What do you guys think? Are online interactions and the ease of communication killing churches? Does church need to be purposeful to it's members? Is there anything that can be done to bring people back to church?

*church: That place you go on Sunday morning to hear a sermon and sing worship songs. Not to be confused with the "Church", the body of believers.

PostPosted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 2:59 pm**

Sure, Millennials will report that the "reason" they are leaving the church is due to its perceived hypocrisy or shallowness. My argument is that while this might be the proximate cause the more distal cause is social computing.

Yeah you're right, random Yahoo blogger. When I say I don't go to church here because I feel like I don't belong and think the message being preached is skewed, I'm just lying. You sure got me! There's plenty of liberal socialist churches here, I'm just pretending there aren't so I can go on Facebook. Man. How did he know?

earlier generations would keep going to churches even if they felt no connection to the church whatsoever, simply because they feared a God who they had been taught REQUIRED that they go to church - they felt they 'HAD TO.'

Isn't that a bad thing? Church is not an effing social club. There's social stuff there, but you don't go to church so you can talk with people and hang out and oh yeah I guess some guy gets up there and talks for a while but I don't really care.

Going to church because you feel required to, that faith cannot save a person. Because if a person reaches that point, their heart is clearly not really resonating with God, and they're not serious about it, it's just something they "have" to do. I would argue it's actually worse for people to go to church out of a sense of obligation.

If the incredibly impersonal Facebook is actually a real threat to a church's* feeling of community, then maybe there is a deeper underlying problem with that church community.

I agree. I thought Christians were the ones who keep talking about personal responsibility and owning up to your own faults and actions. Not blaming someone else. So then why is it when someone says "Why is church membership dropping?" the answer is "WELL IT'S NOT THE CHURCH'S FAULT, IT'S CLEARLY SOMETHING ELSE. IT'S THESE DANG INTERWEBS, THEY'RE THE PROBLEM." Instead of y'know, taking personal responsibility and saying "Maybe we're doing something wrong." But nope!

Online interaction, especially something as impersonal as Facebook, just isn't a replacement for real socializing for most people.

Yeah, I wonder why it is that even though I'm on Facebook and here and other places online, I'm still horribly lonely and depressed? Maybe because talking to people online is cool and I enjoy it but it's no substitute for real actual interaction in real life.

Yeah this article is pretty stupid.

PostPosted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 3:02 pm**

I don't agree with the notion that social networking is "killing" churches. I don't know about anyone else here but I stopped going to church LONG before Facebook existed, and NEVER went to church just so I could "keep up" with people.

They really want people to go to church for the sole pupose of socializing? I do think that churches should provide a sense of community but that shouldn't be the only purpose.

I also think that churches are definitely behind the times on social issues. A lot of people my age and younger don't hold quite the same values as previous generations. That doesn't mean we're more "immoral"; it means that times change.

I think that declining church attendance may also have something to do with the fact that people who have jobs often don't get Sundays off anymore.

PostPosted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 3:02 pm**

I don't think the decline of church as community thing is anything new or surprising. If we take a broader look at history, we've gone from churches as the centrepiece of cities and towns to, well, not. Old churches are falling into disrepair partly because of declining church attendance, but in a lot of cases, it's also because where people live and how they interact has changed as well.

PostPosted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 3:13 pm**

If that's really his opinion of why people went to church in the first place before then facebook didn't kill it, it just buried what was already dead.

PostPosted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 3:15 pm**

+1 to what nate said

PostPosted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 3:44 pm**

I can say for myself that he's gotten the idea but like many people, hasn't followed it to the approptriate conclusion. Yes church attendance is declining, and yes there may be social networking tools that have supplanted the role of the church, but what he's missing is that social networking is supplanting SHALLOW personal interaction at church services. It's supplanting mindless chatter, fishing trips and cheap feel good BS, and to be totally honest, offering more places to have deeper conversations than the static church building ever has, at least in my life experience. If people are only going to Church for the mindless chatter over coffee afterwards, what good is having a building and paying for lights and heating anyhow?

If someone wants brick and mortar churches to grow, make the level of interaction personal and intellectual, encourage the formation of deep friendships that care for people beyond surface platatudes, and stop trying to make everyone into a culture-clone and acknowledge the value of difference. I think the decline in attendance is also due to the faulty nature of american church culture becoming abundantly clear in the light of other media, as well as social media making it very hard to hide any further problems, problems that in the past were hidden because 'the church is the center of the town'. Take for example a recent incident where a Faculty meeting displaying some horrifyingly cold and calloused decision making at Bob jones University was recorded and anonamously posted on the internet. In the past, the culture at that school would have most likely covered up the fact that they were firing people in the same meeting they were handing out bonuses to the people sitting next to the fired individuals. The internet has provided a retibution resistant location for peopel to voice their complaints against churches and show that, in some cases they are not the bastions of humility love and civility that popular culture until recently has protrayed them as, but cultic little feifdoms ruled by power and money hungry ministers-in-name-only.

The internet, as a form of media, will be a mirror of the society posting information to it, and the amount of press given to silly, bad, faulty or abusive religion through blogs and other online sources is a telling indicator of the actual state of the church. Yes the internet does have a habit of warping things to seem worse than they seem, anyone can look at the comments on any news site or Youtube and see that there is a degree of trolling that has to be accounted for, but the amount of heartfelt injury from church conduct is still apparant and being disseminated to the culture as a whole through the internet.

PostPosted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 5:07 pm**

Hmmm, that was interesting and actually coincides with something else that I am reading. I do agree that the Church has lost its position as being essential in at least Generation Y as well as elsewhere. I don't think facebook and other forms of social networking are the cause of it. They may have contributed to it, but I think (or want to think) that the issues behind this run deeper then just the advent of social networking. I definitely think there are two sides to this coin as well. What I mean by this is that both the Church and those who have left are partially to blame for the change. I don't mean this in an accusatory "The Church is terrible and needs to be demolished" or "If you aren't going to church your a terrible person" kind of way. But since both sides are involved in this recent change, I do think both have to share the blame for it (though the Church, ultimately is mostly to blame in this case). The Church I would say is more at fault for not getting people plugged in. I don't think its hypocrisy or other problems that people complain about are the true source of this problem. The reason I say this is that its been my experience that when you are involved in something you are more likely to forgive mistakes, sins, etc and work around problems then if you aren't. Studies actually seem to confirm this too as people who are actually volunteering and are active in the Churches they are in tend to stay through the ages of 17-22 and onward. Another thing, not surprisingly, are Pastor's sermons. The more engaging and relevant they are, the more likely people in that age group are likely to stay. So, the Church really needs to start getting people involved and train Pastor's to be better speakers. Inversely, I do think those who leave are partially to blame for at least one thing and that's not showing any initiative to make things better. I see and here a lot of complaining but I almost never see attempts to fix the problems presented or suggested solutions. When pressed, you get a list of excuses. Which is fine. As I've mentioned, the Church is mainly to blame here, however there will be no way to change the Church unless laity start pushing for widespread change while attending Church. Pastor's can't do much when the pews in their churches are empty.

mechana2015 (post: 1459231) wrote:The internet, as a form of media, will be a mirror of the society posting information to it, and the amount of press given to silly, bad, faulty or abusive religion through blogs and other online sources is a telling indicator of the actual state of the church. Yes the internet does have a habit of warping things to seem worse than they seem, anyone can look at the comments on any news site or Youtube and see that there is a degree of trolling that has to be accounted for, but the amount of heartfelt injury from church conduct is still apparant and being disseminated to the culture as a whole through the internet.

I agree with you here except I do think that the internet, like the media, goes to far. It's one thing to report a story, its another to blow it up and use it to drag the entire Church through the mud. This is understandable though since its a very human reaction and, again, the Church doesn't help with this. There is one specific example I can think of where a certain televangelist got a competing televangelist in trouble for moral failings while he himself had moral failings as well. Sometimes, I think we all forget that everyone is human and make terrible, bone headed choices that ruin lives (ours included).

PostPosted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 5:08 pm**

From my perspective, this article is 100% ridiculous. XD Granted, I attend a church where I have to stand in line to get inside the building on a Sunday morning, because there's a full house and overflow areas being filled. Not only is that only one of the morning services, but there are three other campuses with similar attendance, and it's growing. XD

Anyways, I think it's silly to suggest that Facebook is replacing church. When I was growing up, church was never about friends for me--I didn't really even have "church friends." I had school friends who went to my church, but even then, a Sunday morning for me was usually getting up, going to church, sitting in the service for an hour or so, and going home. And when I chose to leave that church, it wasn't because I was so enthralled with Facebook that I felt like it was filling my spiritual/social cup every week. XD It was because that church was shallow, and it wasn't only my perception of the situation. XD Anyways, church didn't start being about "community" for me until really the last one or two years, when I didn't actually have such easy access to Christian friends. And community is absolutely an important part of Church life, but it's not something that's going to be impacted by Facebook. XD

Agreeing with everyone who says this guy is looking for the answer to a problem in the wrong place, and is really just jumping on the "Facebook is destroying our lives!" bandwagon. XD

PostPosted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 6:09 pm**

Okay there is a problem with his view-point, purely from a business perspective.

Thing is, even though some people may have gone to church for social interaction (certain members of my family fit this, as they have told me to attend church so that I can pick up on girls >_>), if this was their primary market, they should have closed the window on social gathering for centuries now (they can't act like they were founded yesterday). Social networking sites shouldn't have had a chance on them because they'd have cornered the market before the internet even existed.

I mean, what could sell social bonding more then "Love one another like Jesus loved you". Really then, market wise, what went wrong?

----------------
But sadly, they've never been interested in socially building love between members. Building a deep community of trust, openness and unconditional love should have been their primary concern - it would have made the internet obsolete and been a shining example of Christ in a hurting world.

Instead however, it seems to me that they are far more interested in acquiring a uniform conformism from their members. On top of this, the relationships they've always offered have never gone deeper then "You met your friends, discussed your week, talked football, shared information about good schools, talked local politics, got the scoop, and made social plans". I hung out with my friends in the Furries and got a hug on day 1. I've never gotten a hug going to Church - they didn't even want to sit NEXT to me, there would be three seats on either side of me if at all possible.

To put it in perspective, the level of deep personal love I can experience at church today is about equal to the love I can feel at a formal business party between two tense companies in the midst of a major merger (who knows they both might even be wearing suits).

But seriously, people you talk football and discuss good schools with aren't "friends", they're acquaintances. If that's what he bemoans us losing, we haven't lost anything. If "discussing the week, talking football, sharing information about good schools and local politics" was lost from church, it didn't go to Facebook, it headed over to the local Bar - where your money will actually buy you a beer.

Why don't they face the facts, people felt more comfortable sharing who they were on a deeper level to complete strangers on the internet then they did with people at church. This is why the internet ushered in a massive age of discovery about human beings around the globe. So they never "lost" people to Facebook, they never really had them to begin with.

As far as what the real problem is? What Nate said +1.

PostPosted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 6:09 pm**

Peanut (post: 1459255) wrote:
I agree with you here except I do think that the internet, like the media, goes to far. It's one thing to report a story, its another to blow it up and use it to drag the entire Church through the mud. This is understandable though since its a very human reaction and, again, the Church doesn't help with this. There is one specific example I can think of where a certain televangelist got a competing televangelist in trouble for moral failings while he himself had moral failings as well. Sometimes, I think we all forget that everyone is human and make terrible, bone headed choices that ruin lives (ours included).

That's exacly what I meant when I said: "Yes the internet does have a habit of warping things to seem worse than they seem, anyone can look at the comments on any news site or Youtube and see that there is a degree of trolling that has to be accounted for"

That doesn't change the fact that church abuses of all types are now widely disseminated, rather than being restricted to a single town or smaller community. Now if it hits the internet, it's public knowledge everywhere, and churches of all denominations are TERRIBLE at damage control once something is out in the open, and that has had to have a widespread effect now that cases that would have been pushed under a rug, or forgotten, can be searched and tabulated in minutes if it ever made any sort of online news.

PostPosted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 7:25 pm**

Nate (post: 1459209) wrote:Going to church because you feel required to, that faith cannot save a person. Because if a person reaches that point, their heart is clearly not really resonating with God, and they're not serious about it, it's just something they "have" to do. I would argue it's actually worse for people to go to church out of a sense of obligation.

This was my first thought. I'm not attending church right now, which I feel bad about. But I don't want to go just so I don't feel guilty. Can you imagine how sad that must be for God? A bunch of people coming into His church who just sing and act like they care because they're scared of Him (in the wrong way)? It really has nothing to do with Facebook. I think it's a lot more likely that people like me, who feel lost and alone in church, turn to the internet looking for the connections we don't feel at church. Not that it makes ignoring church okay, just...yeah. Painful topic all around.

PostPosted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 7:34 pm**

Radical Dreamer (post: 1459256) wrote:From my perspective, this article is 100% ridiculous. XD Granted, I attend a church where I have to stand in line to get inside the building on a Sunday morning, because there's a full house and overflow areas being filled. Not only is that only one of the morning services, but their are three other campuses with similar attendance, and it's growing. XD

...

Agreeing with everyone who says this guy is looking for the answer to a problem in the wrong place, and is really just jumping on the "Facebook is destroying our lives!" bandwagon. XD

I didn't take that away from the article at all, in fact, I'd be willing to bet that if you personally asked the individual in question they'd tell you they think facebook is a wonderful thing. I don't think he would be making statements elevating the This to me read like an attempted diagnostic of why Church attendance for our generation is dropping. Now, I don't think he got it right because, honestly, this is a very shallow answer. However, I do think, with smaller churches especially, facebook probably has played a role in their drop in youth attendance. The actual reason, though, is probably a lack of any sort of youth ministry at all. There really isn't any reason why facebook should be hurting the Church unless the Church lets it.

Also, I think you are thinking a little too small here. There are churches which are doing very well numberwise, but the American church in general has been dropping. I will say that numbers don't determine whether a church has a good community or not. The AG churches in Cuba, for instance, are exploding, however you won't see one mega church there and the number of "church splits" are off the charts. Ultimately, I think how we view a community, whether its a Church or something else, falls on how well connected we are too it. It's partially our job to get connected however it ultimately falls on the community (and the leadership within that community) to establish and maintain that connection.

Pascal (post: 1459274) wrote:But sadly, they've never been interested in socially building love between members. Building a deep community of trust, openness and unconditional love should have been their primary concern - it would have made the internet obsolete and been a shining example of Christ in a hurting world.

I disagree with this. Mostly because what you are talking about is incredibly difficult to do. In fact, I'm pretty sure people have written doctrinal thesis about that topic Pascal (or at least many, many, books). I also think it has to do with culture a bit as well. The church of my childhood was a medium sized, country church in West Virginia. While I would say that I didn't really grow while I was there, I will say it was a much tighter nit community then the church I currently attend. And I'm not criticizing the church I'm attending either. This was a cultural (and size as well) problem. That church was very much your standard country church where everyone knew everyone and you actually had to have someone step up to the microphone to end the greeting time that every church does between worship and the sermon. I felt a real, constant connection to that church even though I was very young and only knew the friends I had there by name. I also think churches of different ethnicities are this way as well. Though, I've never attended one so I can't really say. I'm just kind of guessing that churches which are targeting people in more community oriented cultures are going to have more of a sense of community within them. With that being said, I still do feel connected with my current church. However its a different sort of connection and this has to do with size. I feel connected to the community but in a more anonymous "I'm a part of something bigger then myself" sort of way. Like being a fan of a sports team. Speaking of which...

Pascal (post: 1459274) wrote:But seriously, people you talk football and discuss good schools with aren't "friends", they're acquaintances. If that's what he bemoans us losing, we haven't lost anything.

You clearly aren't a football fan. :lol:

mechana2015 (post: 1459275) wrote:That's exacly what I meant when I said: "Yes the internet does have a habit of warping things to seem worse than they seem, anyone can look at the comments on any news site or Youtube and see that there is a degree of trolling that has to be accounted for"

Woops, I missed that in your comment. My bad.

PostPosted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 7:49 pm**

As usual, humans are eager to throw the blame on others for their own problems. I fail to see how Facebook is causing a decrease in church attendence. To argue that, you'd have to conduct a poll amongst church going folks to ask if on Sunday(or Saturday) they decided to go to church or get on Facebook. Plus the reasons for going to church and visiting Facebook are completely different. Society has developed in such a way that churchs are no longer the center for public activity. You can go anywhere to meet up and socialize with people(and that includes people of similar religious values as you).

In addition, social interaction is just one facet of attending church. The biggest reasons ought to be edification and spirtual nourishment. Unfortunately, many churches offer neither.

PostPosted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 9:27 pm**

As for the role of internets in the decline of the church, I'm pretty sure "technology" has been "killing" the church since the invention of the printing press, so, oh well, I guess.

PostPosted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 9:39 pm**

I think that with the advent of global media, we no longer have the "luxury" of viewing the church as a pocket of believers gathering together in a building. The problem with the viewpoint of this article is the idea that people in the pews = spiritual health. It doesn't.

If natural human advancement contradicts your ministry plan, your ministry plan needs to be ditched. But more than that, ministry isn't about having plans or doing things a certain way. Ministry is about loving people where they are, caring about them and meeting their needs. Internet and social media is not at odds with this. If anything, it should make this easier.

This article's fundamental viewpoint disconnects personal connection and spiritual development. But as Christians interacting with each other, we are the church in practice. As a pastor I had as a teen used to say, "Church isn't something you do, it's something you are." We don't cease to be the Church when we leave the building.

PostPosted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 10:16 pm**

But I don't want to go just so I don't feel guilty.

Truly. I think a lot of people do a lot of things simply because it's expected of them, not because it has any role in their salvation.

This is not to say that church does not, but clearly sitting in a pew doesn't make you Christian per se any more than sitting in a dump makes you a "sanitation engineer."

PostPosted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 10:19 pm**

Got nothing much to say about the article, though I do read Richard Beck's blog on a regular basis. I think it's funny that the article takes one of Beck's older blog posts and somehow managed to extrapolate an entire thesis from it, and even ACKNOWLEDGES that it's a year old, yet posts it anyway.

PostPosted: **Wed Feb 16, 2011 5:56 am**

The thesis of his post is pretty clear so I'm not sure that there's any extrapolation to be done. Even if it's a year old it's being circulated now, and it's not like anything is wildly different about the state of social networking or churches, so I don't see what's so lololololol about it.

PostPosted: **Wed Feb 16, 2011 7:33 am**

Yuki-Anne (post: 1459348) wrote:I think that with the advent of global media, we no longer have the "luxury" of viewing the church as a pocket of believers gathering together in a building. The problem with the viewpoint of this article is the idea that people in the pews = spiritual health. It doesn't.

I agree and disagree. Its true that there is much more to building a community then just numbers. In fact, the obsession with numbers that some churches has really does annoy me. With this being said, when you are examining the over all health and spiritual health of the American church, the drop in attendance does tell us something because there are some other numbers attached to it as well. I don't think I'd surprise any of you if I told you that, as Church attendance has gone down, so have the number of salvations and baptisms reported. In fact, those numbers are about the same as they were in the 1950s for some denominations. If you don't see a problem with that then remember that our population has increased since the 1950s so, proportionally, we are actually having less salvations and baptisms now then we were in the 50s. I will say that the waves of people within our age group leaving the Church aren't leaving their faith, so this is why I agree with you. However, when what has been the center of your community for centuries is suddenly starting to shrink in terms of attendance, I do think this brings up issues for more spiritual things like discipleship. Its impossible to disciple someone who you have no or very little contact to and in some cases the only way you have contact is via the Church.

blkmage (post: 1459372) wrote:The thesis of his post is pretty clear so I'm not sure that there's any extrapolation to be done. Even if it's a year old it's being circulated now, and it's not like anything is wildly different about the state of social networking or churches, so I don't see what's so lololololol about it.

Eh, the article does seem to leave out a few details and twist Beck's thesis slightly. Having read over the article a couple of times and reading Beck's original post, the author of the article seems to almost be depicting Beck like a cranky old man who hates anything new and fresh. Which isn't what I took away from Beck's blog post at all. In fact, just looking over the first two paragraphs where he says facebook relations are actually a reflection of our real world relations tells me that he probably is on facebook and actually likes it. As I've mentioned before, I think Beck is giving a sort of diagnostic analysis of the state of the American church. I don't think he did a great job at it, but I don't think the article represents what he's arguing completely faithfully either. So, its not too far off but I would say its left out some facts that make Beck and his argument look completely different then how it actually is. I don't think it was done intentionally though.

PostPosted: **Wed Feb 16, 2011 11:04 am**

Yeah but how many people say they're saved and actually aren't? I have seen many, many cases like that. Many people more or less get peer-pressured into "accepting Christ", especially if they have been attending church regularly since early childhood.

PostPosted: **Wed Feb 16, 2011 11:27 am**

Peanut (post: 1459378) wrote:I don't think I'd surprise any of you if I told you that, as Church attendance has gone down, so have the number of salvations and baptisms reported. In fact, those numbers are about the same as they were in the 1950s for some denominations. If you don't see a problem with that then remember that our population has increased since the 1950s so, proportionally, we are actually having less salvations and baptisms now then we were in the 50s.

Are we accounting for all the churches that count it every time the same person walks up on every sunday and 'gets saved' during the alter call?

PostPosted: **Wed Feb 16, 2011 12:07 pm**

ShiroiHikari (post: 1459395) wrote:Yeah but how many people say they're saved and actually aren't? I have seen many, many cases like that. Many people more or less get peer-pressured into "accepting Christ", especially if they have been attending church regularly since early childhood.

mechana2015 (post: 1459398) wrote:Are we accounting for all the churches that count it every time the same person walks up on every sunday and 'gets saved' during the alter call?

So you are both actually saying its worse then the numbers show. So, really, you agree with me that there is a problem with the spiritual health of the Church. As I said, I don't like the obsession that is shown with numbers in a lot of churches, but when you are examining a problem like this, the best way to analyze all of the data is to reduce it to numbers and percentages. Since numbers are neat and clean sounding, it doesn't reflect the mess that's actually being looked at but it does help to give some level of analysis to the mess. On top of this, I do think there is a correlation between the decline in church attendance and the spiritual health of the church. If the Church is in the business of winning souls and even when the numbers are skewed it doesn't look good, then we do have a problem. If people aren't attending then we have a crisis. The reason I say this is because if people are attending but aren't finding God, then we have time to come up with a solution to that problem and reach them better. But, if people aren't finding God and aren't going to Church, then its only a matter of time until a lot of these churches close down.

Changing topic slightly, another thing to mention in this whole issue of church attendance and community is the individualism within our own culture. We in the west are a very individualistic culture and its permeated into our Churches. For instance, someone pointed out to me that modern worship songs tend to use the pronoun "I" far more often then "we." He also said that this is completely different then many of the older hymns however I haven't done enough research to confirm this. Still, the usage of "I" over "we" in songs we sing as a community on Sunday's is a very interesting observation and I think a symptom of part of the underlying problem for the modern Church. The American Church has made (or just promoted, either way it brings about the same effect) faith a completely personal matter. To put it another way, we are preaching that you can be a Christian and live alone on an island (something which I'm not sure I buy). While there isn't anything necessarily wrong with this, it does make it very difficult to create a sense of community that becomes essential to the individual. To paraphrase Beck, we're the first generation that is fed up with the Church and is able to leave because we are also the first generation which finds ourselves not reliant on the Church for any of our social needs. When you add individualism into the mix, then the last effective connection (which is our spiritual needs) is broken and people are now free to be Christians who don't attend Church. At least in America, this wasn't really possible before.

PostPosted: **Wed Feb 16, 2011 3:13 pm**

Peanut (post: 1459403) wrote: So you are both actually saying its worse then the numbers show. So, really, you agree with me that there is a problem with the spiritual health of the Church. As I said, I don't like the obsession that is shown with numbers in a lot of churches, but when you are examining a problem like this, the best way to analyze all of the data is to reduce it to numbers and percentages. Since numbers are neat and clean sounding, it doesn't reflect the mess that's actually being looked at but it does help to give some level of analysis to the mess. On top of this, I do think there is a correlation between the decline in church attendance and the spiritual health of the church. If the Church is in the business of winning souls and even when the numbers are skewed it doesn't look good, then we do have a problem. If people aren't attending then we have a crisis. The reason I say this is because if people are attending but aren't finding God, then we have time to come up with a solution to that problem and reach them better. But, if people aren't finding God and aren't going to Church, then its only a matter of time until a lot of these churches close down.

You say that like it's a bad thing that some churches are closing down. We've had an epidemic of churches for the last 75 years in the united states as churches have divided, often due to petty disagreements, again and again, filling towns and cities with clone churches only blocks apart who's names are so similar that they may as well just all be Churchbucks. I think, that, for a variety of reasons, Church attendance isn't societal required anymore. Once people realized that, and realized that they didn't have to put up with the gossip, guilt tripping and powerplays that are so common in church institutions, they decided not to attend anymore.

I think the Spiritual Health of the American church has been at the same level as today for a while, but was masked by the societal impetus to be in church on Sunday and to profess yourself as Christian, and the numbers were inflated because people were just counting 'who got saved', and not paying attention to 'who is getting saved over and over again'. There's been a long standing focus on numbers rather than church member health, therefore, yes, it is worse than the numbers imply AND it has been that way for quite some time because people pad their egos with numbers.

Peanut (post: 1459403) wrote:Changing topic slightly, another thing to mention in this whole issue of church attendance and community is the individualism within our own culture. We in the west are a very individualistic culture and its permeated into our Churches. For instance, someone pointed out to me that modern worship songs tend to use the pronoun "I" far more often then "we." He also said that this is completely different then many of the older hymns however I haven't done enough research to confirm this. Still, the usage of "I" over "we" in songs we sing as a community on Sunday's is a very interesting observation and I think a symptom of part of the underlying problem for the modern Church. The American Church has made (or just promoted, either way it brings about the same effect) faith a completely personal matter. To put it another way, we are preaching that you can be a Christian and live alone on an island (something which I'm not sure I buy). While there isn't anything necessarily wrong with this, it does make it very difficult to create a sense of community that becomes essential to the individual. To paraphrase Beck, we're the first generation that is fed up with the Church and is able to leave because we are also the first generation which finds ourselves not reliant on the Church for any of our social needs. When you add individualism into the mix, then the last effective connection (which is our spiritual needs) is broken and people are now free to be Christians who don't attend Church. At least in America, this wasn't really possible before.

I think that's only half of it. The other half is the insistence in many churches that there is only one type of person that's a Christian, and that they wear a specific (stated or unstated) dress code, participate in a certain way, listen to only a certain type of music, read a certain kind of literature and if you aren't part of that group, you aren't 'in'. If you aren't 'in' the consequences range from isolation and ostracization to aggressive attempts to 'reform' a person or remove them from the group. Between these two aspects of individualization and enforced mold fitting, the fact of a church of unique humans sharing a unified faith has been lost. American churches enforce a unique, individual faith among unified, uniform humans.

PostPosted: **Wed Feb 16, 2011 4:48 pm**

I don't like it when people generalize over churches saying "American churches are like this". As I have said in a different thread a long time ago, I know that my own church is a very good church, and it saddens me to have people talk as though because it is American it is full of anti-diversity, emotional manipulation, and impersonality. It's true that in some places it can be hard to find churches that do not propagate good Christian values, but I think this is not an argument for having less churches; it's an argument for having more churches, since the more there are in an area the more likely one of them is going to be a real good church.

I also personally like small churches better, for much of the same reasons I like small classes in school, so I would be upset if I found in 20 years that in America there's one megachurch every few cities and no small community churches dotted inbetween. Larger churches also are more likely to focus on numbers and lose the individual humans attending them. If I had to go to a church like that, I would not be surprised if I found myself just not going to church at all, and only hanging out with my Christian friends on [s]Facebook[/s] CAA.

PostPosted: **Wed Feb 16, 2011 5:03 pm**

[quote="Midori (post: 1459451)"]I don't like it when people generalize over churches saying "American churches are like this". As I have said in a different thread a long time ago, I know that my own church is a very good church, and it saddens me to have people talk as though because it is American it is full of anti-diversity, emotional manipulation, and impersonality. It's true that in some places it can be hard to find churches that do not propagate good Christian values, but I think this is not an argument for having less churches]

I live in one of the denser population centers in the US, an area where there is literally a church on every street corner in some areas, and my experience for 6 years was as you say "anti-diversity, emotional manipulation, and impersonality" spread across churches of all sizes and multiple denominations (and non-denominations). Around year 4 I started trying to figure out what was happening, supposing it might be a regional factor, and I found instead that anti-diversity, emotional manipulation, and impersonality were a common theme, and were being taught in some of the more well known religious education institutions, nationwide. I speak of the American Church in general because that is what I have observed it to be, nationwide. Nationwide I see a majority of churches based on those three things you mentioned, and a minority of the churches nationwide being interested in real people rather than numbers. There are a few lucky people with good churches or who find good churches on a regular basis. I grew up in a good church, ignorant to the concerns outside it until late high school and early college, but it's taken me 6 years to find anything close to what I experienced before.

I'm not in favor of everything funneling down to mega churches, but when you have a church of the same denomination every 2 blocks, there's something insane occurring, and that contraction is inevitable, especially when there are only 10 people in each of those churches.

PostPosted: **Wed Feb 16, 2011 6:45 pm**

Midori wrote:I don't like it when people generalize over churches saying "American churches are like this".

Larger churches also are more likely to focus on numbers and lose the individual humans attending them.

Hmm... :p

I'm mostly pointing this out in jest but I did think it was interesting is all I'm saying. Everyone generalizes about something, even me of course, so that's why I'm not pointing it out in anything except good humor.

But no, I wanted to say I have an aunt and uncle who would also challenge your generalization of larger churches, as they belong to a "megachurch" that is very friendly and personal, and they greatly enjoy it and wouldn't give it up for anything. Much like your statement that not all American churches are like mech said, they would say not all large churches are like you say. In both instances, the individual churches are to blame, not all churches of that type.

For what it's worth though, my experience is similar to mech's. There just aren't any churches around here that aren't going to rail on certain issues that I disagree with most US churches on (i.e. the churches here are all conservative or even libertarian). I also see the same problem he mentioned here, where I can point out at least, at LEAST five Baptist churches in a ten minute drive, at least three Methodist, and a few other miscellaneous. Only one Catholic church though.

I don't think small churches are inherently better than larger churches though, same as I don't think small classes are inherently better. Especially when you do consider things such as offerings, how much would a pastor make at a church with only ten members? Probably not enough to survive, he'd need a second job, which at some point would almost certainly affect his sermons or ability to help others outside of Sunday ("Pastor I have a problem." "Sorry I don't get off work for another five hours.").

Again, I'm not slamming small churches or saying that they're worse than larger ones, I'm just saying they still have problems, just different problems than larger ones. This is why neither is better than the other.

PostPosted: **Wed Feb 16, 2011 7:30 pm**

If your church's main draws are a guilt trip, a political platform, and maybe a half-decent band/organist/choir/etc., then maybe getting more people to come shouldn't be your first concern. Maybe the one you need to get back is God.

PostPosted: **Wed Feb 16, 2011 7:46 pm**

Going to church because you feel required to, that faith cannot save a person. Because if a person reaches that point, their heart is clearly not really resonating with God, and they're not serious about it, it's just something they "have" to do.

This is not to say that church does not, but clearly sitting in a pew doesn't make you Christian per se any more than sitting in a dump makes you a "sanitation engineer."

And also, Just like being in a garage doesn't make you a car, going to church doesn't make you a christian.

I wonder if people said this too when the phone/cell phone came about? This article sounds more like "Oh no, they have facebook! They don't have to go to church to make plans with someone. Stupid friggin' facebook, taking away the social outlet business from us." Laughable.

As they say, if you can't beat em', join em'.

PostPosted: **Wed Feb 16, 2011 7:49 pm**

Glad to see that some good conversation is being had over this.

I can say that I have had the same experiences as Mech and Nate. There just aren't a great variety of churches were I live, despite there being a lot of churches. The one that I do think is a good church is unfortunately too far from where I live to afford the gas it would cost to drive there weekly. As a result, I tend to get my fellowship and study from other sources.

Nate (post: 1459481) wrote:For what it's worth though, my experience is similar to mech's. There just aren't any churches around here that aren't going to rail on certain issues that I disagree with most US churches on (i.e. the churches here are all conservative or even libertarian).

Yeah, this has been my experience as well. I don't care if my pastor, or family, or friends don't agree with my political views. What I do care about is being told that I am "an agent of the enemy" simply because our views in that area differ. Now, if they could prove that these were views that I must hold as a Christian, as they claim they are, then that would be a different matter and I would accept the rebuke. But as things currently stand, they are alienating both myself and a great number of both believers and non-believers.

CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

Theologian: Facebook and Modern Technology are Killing Churches

Theologian: Facebook and Modern Technology are Killing Churches