Standing on the sidewalk outside a church after the service, I asked a young, professional-looking woman why she came to church that morning. Her answer was immediate, “I feel the power of God here.” She also explained that this church had reached out to her when she was in juvenile detention.
If you were asked that question, how would you answer and how long would you need to think about it? I suspect many traditional Christians from historic church bodies would struggle, only to come up with some version of, “That’s what we do on Sunday mornings,” or “This is where my friends are.”
When my family and I were members of a large Lutheran congregation that finished an impressive new sanctuary 35 years ago, I noticed that the average attendance reported in the weekly bulletin went down. Almost always a new sanctuary attracts more people. I asked the pastor why he thought fewer were attending. All he could come up with was, “I guess our people are losing the habit.” Habit is a very weak motivator for participating in anything.
Habit could sustain involvement in earlier, more stable times when children accepted the ways of their parents. Obviously, we are in a time now of fast social change driven by the increasingly rapid innovations in the technology by which we organize our lives. Few of the youngest generation of adults aspire to carry on the habits of their parents because they have so many new options. One result is the almost complete absence of 20- and 30-somethings in the worship and activities of traditional congregations. The long-range implications for their continued decline should be obvious.
I hope to promote discussion about this and other cultural issues among Christians who care about church life and value the heritage of traditional church bodies. By this, I mean church bodies that value their centuries-long heritage. They used to be described as mainline: Episcopalian, Lutheran, Presbyterian/Reformed, Methodist. They are all in decline and are best now described as old line.
I have been a practicing pastor now for almost thirty years, observing what works and what doesn’t. My books in recent years have focused on how the Spirit works today. In the Nicene Creed, we confess he is the Lord and giver of church life. I am convinced that we in traditional churches need to fine-tune our church cultures and the methods through which we express our beliefs, and to do so in the direction of greater willingness to share our spiritual experiences. If you don’t have spiritual experiences in church, why bother going?
The outcome I seek is that those who participate in these discussions will learn better to name our encounters with the Holy Spirit, to share those stories with others, to seek more such fulfilling experiences, and thereby to reach more unchurched.
I have studied these general concerns enough to know that I want to organize my contributions in the blogs that follow into these Six Perspectives on the Spirit: Motivated by the Spirit, Recognizing the Spirit, Discipled by the Spirit, Waiting on the Spirit, Culturally Shaped Experiences of the Spirit, and Organizing the Spirit’s Fellowships.
The young woman I mentioned who knew why she went to church was an African-American coming out of a Spirit-oriented, predominantly black congregation in the Tremont neighborhood of inner-city Cleveland. Tremont has become a trendy place attracting young adults. It is packed with church buildings from a former era. I intend to do more “why-do-you-go-to-church” research there, expecting the new generation to tell me why they don’t. Tremont is also where I grew up.
If you know of other why-do-people-go-to-church research, please let me know.
Was glad to get the card in the mail telling of this website. I have found the “Why………article helpful as a genesis to begin thought process on this matter.
I was ordained in the early 1980’s and have lived in two distinct worlds of ministry. I have primarily served as a Hospice Chaplain since 1982. I have also served under a parish call/interims on 16 occasions.
In the parish experience I began to notice several things that bothered me. First, I found that the confirmation of American adolescents to be far from supplying any sustaining effort for that local parish. Many times the refrain that I heard from parents to their child was, “Just complete confirmation and we’ll never MAKE you go to church again.” Second, I found that there was a disconnect in church leaders who were elected out of familiarity but they did not participate in any educational endeavors and sometimes not even regular attendance in worship.
On the hospice side of my ministry I learned from my patients reasons they left the church or were critical of the church. Their perception that the church was all about money was a huge message to me. Also, during the early years of the AIDS epidemic, people in the truest of needs were turned away and disparaged. Lastly, I never heard any of my dying patients say, “hey you know what my favorite doctrine is?” I did hear them tell me their favorite bible verse, bible story or hymn. And I always found an explanation of grace a true discovery and offer them a peaceful benediction.
Great to hear your comments from the perspective of a chaplain. Just last Sunday I was talking with one of our members who does nursing home devotions. When he mentioned his interest in What Happened to Our Churches, he got an ear full from those elderly patients as they explained why they did not go to church more often.
Very soon, in early 2019, I will have an extension of my new website that will encourage conversations in private groups that I am calling, Facebook Church Fellowships.
Thanks for your affirmation. We have a member of Royal Redeemer who does weekly nursing home services. He made the same observation of comments by those in his services. The details of doctrine are just not that important to people in our churches. Yet pastors spend so much time fussing over fine points.
Dave
It will be interesting to see how much conversation is generated through this platform. I’ve had little success in generating comments on a couple of social media platforms. However, using closed (invitation only or request membership) websites have resulted in more conversation. I think it was because people had more in common to discuss and there was safety among like-thinking people.
Thanks for your comment Kevin. I’m hopeful that we will start to have more conversations here on my website. I am also currently starting several private groups on Facebook that I will call “Facebook Church Fellowships.” I will soon have a landing page on my website where people can find these groups. I believe these will take off because the exchanges are with people they know from their own church. The Facebook conversation will have a Facebook photo of a majority of the users. While I can’t remember the names of most members, I do know them by sight and can pick up a conversation. I just have to be careful not to call them by name because I may be using the wrong one.
See you on Monday morning at 9:00!
Ive led Holy Spirit led healing services on Facebook and have many testimonies of healings from people we’ve never met as we open these up to anyone who wants to attend. We select spotify music in advance so that all who attend world wide are listening to the same worship. We have multiple teams who receive the written requests, pray over them, write out prayers, pray over the screen before hitting send, asking those who receive the prayers to pray them out loud and then send us back their results after they check out their condition. We often state there is a miracle when you check.
Jay,
Great ministry! For two years I did monthly Sunday evening prayer for healing services, but without any dramatic results. I found Eric Metaxas’s Miracles most convincing. I personally know Paul Teske and his story of healing. Since so many pastors don’t believe true miracles happen, I don’t want to start there. I will ask our web developer, Kristine McAfee, to think about where we might feature some of your stories on our website.
Thanks,
Dave
Yes, web posting don’t get much response, even when there is something to respond to. I think the reaction to my new website http://www.virtualfellowships.church will generate more interest. I changed the name to virtual fellowships after we met in your office.
Dave
Thank you for the invitation and the ebook. I look forward to reading it. I also look forward to hearing others comments and experience. I have pastored a small Lutheran congregation for the past sixteen years. While the community around us is growing rapidly, we are declining slowly. We have tried door to door visits, special social “get to know your neighbor” events, and several other things designed to find out the needs of our community, we still see many more cars in driveways around us than we see in church parking lots. One thing I have learned is we cannot reach the people in our community until we turn our members into disciples. That is proving to be a mighty task alone.
Hi Mike,
Good to hear from you. You say “One thing I have learned is we cannot reach the people in our community until we turn our members into disciples. That is proving to be a mighty task alone.” Yes, better discipleship is needed, but I don’t think we understand how that really happens. That is a task for the Spirit. If you downloaded the book, please read Blog 6: Discipled by the Spirit. Discipleship is a guilt word. Growing in the Spirit will almost automatically result in better discipleship. Growth in the Spirit produces more motivation-changing fruit of the Spirit, which produces even more motivation to share.
Thanks, Dave
Thanks for this discussion. We are having this conversation as part of our current sermon series on what it means to be a follower of Jesus. We talked about online churches (Robloxian and VR) both as a way to expand people’s thinking about the possibilities for church and to re-think why we gather as we do for worship. In a suburban setting, where families are wall-to-wall with work, school, and sports, our challenge is to move beyond church as a place where we gather once a week to breathe and reconnect with God and one another to the church as us, the Body of Christ going out into work, school, and sports as Jesus’ hands and heart to those around us, directed and empowered by His Spirit. https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2018/11/13/going-to-church-in-virtual-reality-beme.beme
Pastor Joel
Good to hear from you. The Reformers left the biblical material in the NT poorly developed. Check out Blog 3 titled LOOK TO THE SPIRIT FOR SPIRITUAL ENERGY of my book (which you can also download for free HERE). I have just written a new blog that will address the Spirit’s empowering presence that we just don’t appreciate.
I hope within four months or so to offer Virtual Church Fellowship that congregations can use. We are searching for the right platform right now.
Let’s stay in contact.
Dave
Thanks David for the insights. I have been thinking quite a while about this in my call to serve in lower Alabama where, unless there is an influx of ready made Lutherans, most case the new people are from differing church backgrounds that want strong Biblical convictions but not necessarily from a confessional church approach. Living the faith is more important than talking about our heritage. The observation is also spot on for the 20-30 somethings. I am seeking to approach that by having intentional one on one conversations and seeing where the Spirit leads in the follow through. The dynamics for ministry have been changing even as the Gospel thrust/message remains the same. Maybe some new wine theology is in order! Thanks for including me in this email!
Ralph, I absolutely LOVE your phrase: “Living the faith is more important than talking about our heritage.” Blessings on your ministry, brother!
I have been writing some new blogs that I will put out soon as Conversation Starters. These should help open up the issue for your church leaders. Send me the email addresses of your leaders and I will include them on the master list. Then you will have something going on among the leaders that you can refer to and discuss.
I don’t think we older ones can attract the twenty-somethings. It has to come from fellow millennials. Check out http://www.plileadership.org. They have a program underway to raise up 1,000 young leaders.
Dave Luecke
Just an encouragement for thought: habits aren’t bad. I agree that habit alone is an incomplete motivation for going to church. The key is to know WHY we have the habit. I have a habit of brushing and flossing my teeth every night. And I know WHY. It’s for my health and well-being. Why do we make a habit of going to church? I hope we can express that. It’s for my health and well-being–for my eternal salvation. It’s for the health and well-being for my family, my place of work, my neighborhood as God creates in me a clean heart to serve them in love. Worship removes the crud in my soul.
Or as the old, cheesy church signs say, “Brushing up on the Bible prevents truth decay.” (Dad joke)
Yes, habit is and was wonderful. But it is a “should” word, like everyone should exercise daily. Few do. The habit of older church cultures is disappearing quickly in the new social culture of North America. To turn around decline we have to address motivations that would cause de-churched and unchurched to seek out a Christian congregation. We can say that they should do so for the spiritual benefits. But what are those, and are we consistently delivering them? But it takes the Holy Spirit to deliver the true spiritual benefits of his fruit. Most congregations have a long way to go to do so.
Thank you Pastor Luecke for sending your request for a Linked-In connection with me and for the email information. Very interesting and needed reflection. Our Conservative and traditional ELCM congregations here in Pennsylvania have encountered the same challenge as the liberal Mainline (so called) Churches. My three little congregations continue to use the old red Service Book and Hymnal.
I was Ordained in 1974 and continue in full time Ministry as well as President of the ELCM Synod. It seems It seems like I have served in Ministry in two different worlds. When we left the ELCA in January 1992 and started up a new Congregations from scratch we had wonderful numbers and attendance throughout our rental years and for many years following acquiring property and remodeling a Warehouse building into a Church Building. Stewardship and Churchmanship were very strong. We were very mission minded and launched a 2nd Congregation in an old Stone Church that had been closed by the former LCA and had been vacant for 12 years in a very rural area. We launched a third congregation at a location previously a mission of WELS. However as the years progressed our Demographic was on the older side and they began to die off and enter the Kingdom. A goodly number of our younger families moved out of the area to seek employment. Other young families were impacted by divorce and that of course destroys Churchmanship as families and especially impacts the youth in terms of Sunday School attendance and Confirmation attendance and basic requirements such as every Sunday Worship Attendance. Once younger families begin to miss several Sundays a month it soon follows that they are into C & E praxis and then that too disapears. Older Youth also get Jobs that require them to work on Sundays and that too destroys Churchmanship even where Holy Scripture is steadfastly emphasized as God’s Immutable Word to Mankind rather than as Man in various ages attempting to say something about God in terms of the Culture of that day. Then an added blow to us was the praxis of Intramural Sports leagues. In our Area of PA Little League Baseball, Youth Soccer leagues, Youth Football leagues, and Youth Basketbal leagues began holding their practices and games on Sunday Mornings. If a youth does not show up for practices they are not allowed to play in the games. Parents want to be at the games of their children and grand parents as well and as a result Sunday School efforts, the effort to implant the Immutable Word of God into the hearts and minds of Young and Old was thwarted and overall attendance dwindled to the point of becoming like the former Soviet Union where only the Elderly attended Gottesdienst. So two of my little congregations (in the more urban setting have shown the decrease as the old die off). The 3rd congregation is in a rural farming area and there we have held steady even though we only have an outhouse facility for the old Stone Church.
So I will read your downloaded book with great interest and look forward to ongoing contact with you and commentary by others.
Blessings in Christ!
Pastor Roy A. Steward
Glad you liked the first one. Perhaps you can guide me in the future on how to make these blogs even more useful.
Dave
I find this whole train of thought interesting. I have noticed over the years the trend and have made an effort to understand it. Since I have retired from parish ministry my wife and I have visited a lot of different churches and in the tow and half years we found one church where the folks were willing to at least say hi to a stranger! In that church which was not a mainline denomination I was surprised at how many folks made tee effort to visit with a stranger and this church was 3000 miles from our home! We had more in common when we attended our grand childrens soccer and baseball games with strangers that when we attended church!
In my own family my children are not interested in just attending church they don’t want to be entertained or recite a liturgy they want the church to make a differrence in their lives and impact the world they live in.
Now as a part time prison chaplain in Alaska I get to listen to an entirely different perspective. Due to budget issues the State of Alaska finds it more cost effective to send prisoners out of state and I have had the opportunity to listen to inmates who have been sent to institutions where the chaplain made sure he followed the liturgy. to put it nicely the inmates returned with a very negative perspective! (this also brings up a whole bunch of other issues the church needs to find the courage to address!)
I think we know each other from Valparaiso University, where I was on the faculty in the early 1980s.
Your discovery is well said. I have heard similar observations from those who do worship services at nursing homes.
Most mainline congregations need to change their church cultures in the direction you are pointing out. I will write in future blogs how that happens. Frankly, it won’t happen until congregations more fully appreciate the Holy Spirit’s present work of changing hearts, from which new motivations can arise.
Churches that resolutely stay with their old church culture will probably not survive very long in our new national culture.
Dave
We know each other from the Alaska mission for Christ and the village of Scammon Bay
Yes, now I remember. I recall you have been ordained. Where are you serving now?
DAve
I retired from Parish ministry in 2016 and am now sharing a prt time position as a Prison Chaplain here in Alaska.
My question fits right in….Why is worship no longer a priority? Folks take a little time for Christian Education, but not for worship and the means of Grace. WHY?
You are asking the right question. Mainline churches have a heritage of state churches, where attendance was almost mandated and socially supported. We survived in the and did well into the first generation of those who migrated from the city to the suburbs. Family loyalties were still strong. We are now into facing children who are the third generation of those suburban church founders. They have lost family loyalty.
The challenge is to provide truly spiritual experiences in our congregations. If you don’t have spiritual experiences at church, why bother going? We can’t promote truly spiritual experiences without a greater appreciation of how the Spirit works among us now. In former generations, we did not have to depend on the Spirit because congregational life was still healthy. As we decline, we need to figure out how the Spirit works among us now. I will be addressing that in future blogs.
I appreciate your desire to continue the discussion of this very important topic. My only question is: how do you know when you’ve had a “spiritual experience?” Isn’t this somewhat subjective and based on what the person’s emotions were at that time? Is not worship primarily about receiving the gifts of God of forgiveness, life and salvation and responding back to God with prayer, praise and thanksgiving? I don’t mean to be contradictory, just seeking clarification. Thank you.
Jim, thanks for responding. Yes, spiritual experiences are subjective. If participants don’t have spiritual experiences in church, why would they bother going? Churches with a long heritage need to discuss what satisfactions those old timers were addressing through their church participation. I think a lot of it had to do with ethnic security in a new country, with the need for affiliation in a social grouping, like a social club. That motivation was strong for the generation of church members who moved out to the suburbs in the 50s and 60s. Many churches chose to organize themselves like a club with volunteers. But clubs are declining faster than congregations. Congregations that want a future will need to clarify what they offer. It is the Holy Spirit who calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies believers and their congregations. We need to pay much more attention to how this Third Person of the Trinity works today.
Dave – Thanks again for the discussion. I would refer people to a great dialogue on the Carey Nieuwhoff podcast #237 with Ed Stetzer who holds the Billy Graham evangelism chair at Wheaton College. He’s planted and revitalized churches and his 1 1/2 hour talk w/ Carey covers the challenges of mission work in the USA in a fast changing culture. One of the great insights is that nominal Christians are disappearing but Christ followers are quite stable. We have more NONES that are taking the place of nominals, but followers tend to be firm. He’s a good listen considering he was a contemporary church planter originally but is now interim pastor at Moody Bible Church, which is hardly an “attractional” church.
Thanks for the referral. Yes, Ed Stetzer is certainly worth listening to. I, too, planted a church that God blessed and is thriving now. It forces a new perspective. Church planting has changed dramatically in the last 30 years, as I write about in my blog titled Planting Church’s the New Way that you can download from my website.
I believe hope brings people to church.
Hope for those in crisis of a better life now and in the future
Hope for the believer of eternity with Christ
Hope for the attendee who comes out of habit for some insight to get them through the week
Hope for the parent who tries to do the ‘right’ thing so their children will turn out ok
Hope for the elderly that all the sermons will be proven true when life is over
Hope for the seeker who asks “Is this all there is to life?”
People may not know what they are looking for when they walk through the doors. But they hope to find ‘it’. Why do I go to church personally? At one time or another for all of the above reasons. But it was God’s grace and mercy that drew me to Him and my faith that keeps me coming back. Romans 12:1-2 says it best.
Lori, great statement. Does a great job of defining ‘it’–much better than a dry marketing statement of “spiritual experience.”
Lori, what is the source of this fine statement. I would like to use it but am hesitant doing so without naming the source.
I wrote it. Feel free to use it.
I wrote it. You can use it if it helps. Thanks for your kind words.
If you don’t mind, I want to use this as a devotional for my students at Indiana Wesleyan University.
This is so convicting to me. I need to stop judging why people come to church and be joyful that they come for whatever their reason.
Marilyn W.
Marilyn,
If you are referring to my post, please feel free to use it. Also, let me know what the response is.
Lori
I have a small Nursing Home Ministry in the Cleveland area, 0 I am intrigued by Joel & Ralph’s thinking. We all believe in the miracle in the body & blood of our Savior but we are also in the here & now and must address the changing needs of the Church thru the work of the Holy Spirit.
The Church has vastly changed over the past Century as it has over most Centuries, but the message has been the same, Christ crucified & ascending to the Father so that we will all be with him in eternity still needs to be preached to the ends of the world, but we must adapt to this changing times while proclaiming his victory over the Devil. The physical Church of God as the shores of the Continent are always changing, but the Word of God lasts forever!
I am glad my blog stimulated your thinking.
Pr Dave, thanks for your witness. I am a Southern Ohio Synod pastor now living in Florida. Thank you for your ministry of Word and Witness. I am stimulated and challenged by your thoughts, I share many of your values and your views of how to strengthen God’s church. As a colleague/friend says at the end of every communication: “Love God, Love others. It’s as simple as that!”
Thanks for the supportive affirmation. Many approach the Spirit with emotions, which are important. I am trying to add reason, based on what Jesus and Paul taught.
I attend church to fellowship with others like minds. For communion, the Word handed down by the apostles, the great hymns filled with theological content, and but not least communion with the Godhead. Father son and Holy Ghost.
Glad you do church for all the right reasons. But there seem to be fewer of you in our churches. Whatever your story, the Spirit worked well in your life. Now the question is how we can help more people experience the Spirit in their lives. It is the Spirit, more than we humans, who calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies individuals.
Your eye opening of the third person in the Holy Trinity, that I believe is spot on. We don’t need gimmicks to bring souls to the Cross, couture is always changing but the Word of God Never Changes. Shouldn’t Christ Crucified for the sake of our Salvation be enough?
For us Lutherans page 5 & 15 with much of the service being laid out in age old Liturgy is not what the younger generation wants out of the “Church”. Look around all the Mega Churches don’t even use a Liturgy. Our focus should be in winning souls, are we preaching to the World in the wrong language? The younger generation has thru our efforts has given them a great start in life & quite frankly have had it made. Ask yourself “did you grow up having everything given to you” I bet most would say absolutely not.
I have a 3 Nursing Home Ministry in Cle that I pray has been beneficial to the forgotten who have been & are closer to the pearly gates. I do have sort of a captive audience & don’t ask if they are Missouri Synod, keep them strong & focused on Jesus is where it’s at. We just had our traditional annual “Children’s Christmas Service” at my home Church which was very well put together except there were only 3 children and a flock of us overage kids. Yes we have a extremely difficult job ahead of us but we know it’s well worth it. Lead on Lord! Show us how to lead thru The Holy Spirit! God Bless!
Thanks for the encouragement, Bob.