Thursday, May 17, 2007

It would seem to me...

I attended a church mini-seminar a couple weeks ago. It was sponsored by a regional office of a mainline Protestant denomination that has been losing membership on a yearly basis, just like all other mainline Christian churches. The theme of the seminar was ‘Transformation of the Church’. Sounded like something I would be interested in.

Turned out I was wrong.

The speaker, a regional minister from Northern California, blamed much of the steady decline in membership on the fact (or presumed fact) that the Church(s) have lost sight of their ‘mission’. He conjectured that if the existing members of the church would rededicate themselves to the job (mission) of inviting the 60+ percent of the general public that do not currently attend church to ‘come and join us’, the problem of declining membership would soon be solved. Basically, that was the sum total of his 1 ½ hour message. He ended with an enthusiastic …”so get out there and get going!” That was it. That was his idea of ‘Transformation'.

It would seem to me… if it were that easy, it would have been done long ago.

It would seem to me… the 60+ percent of the population that are not coming to church are not coming for a reason… Perhaps one ought to spend some time trying to understand what that reason is before one begins to “get out there and get going!”

It would seem to me… (from what little research I have done on the subject), people today are much smarter than they were a hundred years ago. They understand to much about the universe and humankind and science in general, to believe in the ancient dogma of the church.

It would seem to me… the church ought to grow up and get honest with itself and the-people-in-the-pews, (about things like; virgin birth, resurrection of the dead, God in the sky, etc., etc.) before it decides to “get out there and get going!”

It would seem to me… A more intelligent message would have much more of an appeal to the un-churched and those who have left the church, than the myth and folklore the church is promoting today.

But then… I could be wrong………………….. barry e

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