I am writing this entry about something that I have been wondering about for quite a while. In writing this, I want you to understand that I am not doing so to cast any judgment on anyone. I am just really intrigued by this issue I am going to describe and I’d really like to have a dialogue about it.
Allow me to cut to the chase: All current data indicates that the majority of people, including the majority of those who were raised in an organized religion, very rarely attend worship services. For most people, in fact, being present in a house of worship is limited to weddings, funerals and special events involving family or friends.
Now all you have to do is read my title above and you know something about me - I go to church every week! No surprise there. Yet, in addition to the fact that being a clergyman is my profession, I also happen to really value both participating in worship and being part of what is usually described as a religious congregation. Now, I can give you several reasons for that, but the reason I am writing, as I said, is that as a clergyman trying to serve a congregation and be part of a larger local community, I really want to know peoples’ perceptions of organized religion and participation in the activities it provides.
As a Christian pastor, I wonder what it is that keeps people away from worshiping in and being part of a local church. My sense is that for many people, the church has just not met your needs. I also would like to hear from you for whom the church is a life giving and energizing people and place.
For a good number, I would suppose, what we offer does not seem relevant or meaningful to your life. In future writing, I will be glad to share with you what it does for me, but, right now, quite honestly, I would be most pleased if you would offer some feedback to me. Please leave a comment if you are so inclined.
While in future entries, I will explain my personal perspectives on these matters, I have to say one thing before I end this column today! I have heard people tell me that you don’t need to belong to a church or synagogue to either worship God or be a good person. What I want you to know is that my belief in the value of
worshiping and being part of a community of faith completely accepts the fact
that faith in God and good ethical living is found both in those who go
regularly to places of worship as well as in those who never or rarely set foot within.
Yet, as someone who believes that worship and connection with a group of people who are connected to worship is important, I don’t want to live in a churchy bubble. I want to know what people in the everyday real world are really thinking...so I’d love it if you’d give it some thought...and maybe give it a response!
Thanks!
Pastor Bob
Public schools are crawling with pedophiles because they go where the children are. But the mainstream media doesn't like to talk about sexual abuse by teachers, unless it's a female teacher and a male student. In those cases the teachers become national celebrities.
I liked your observation about having to say "Bible-believing." Don't think there are too many of those left in the UCC.
http://philanthropy.com/article/FaithGiving/133611/ The religious donate to religious charities. Yes church is a charity. Speaking of empirical evidence, could you provide evidence that god exists?
Important side note- What is often not realized is the growth of new church starts within the UCC. We don't see it as much in New England.We are seeing it in places where people are looking for a different approach from the dominant religious culture of the region- Also lost in this is the great increase in those attending Unitarian congregations over the last several years..... Thanks for contributing to this dialogue....... PB
PB
What it doesn't say is how they define "religion." You attribute it all to the collection plate but there is no basis in the blurb for that conclusion. "Religion" could include donations to religiously-affiliated colleges and hospitals or social agencies such as Lutheran Family Services or Catholic Relief Services or Baptist Social Services. A church in my town holds events where people give to the church but all proceeds go to the local food and fuel banks, and all churches support charitable causes out of their collection plates. Can you say the number doesn't include donations to the Knights of Columbus when they sell tootsie rolls to help the developmentally disabled? Check the web site of any Catholic diocese and see the ministries they have that do not involve promoting the church. When you come up with real empirical data I will explain to you that I can provide just as much evidence that God exists as you can provide that He doesn't.
as well, media outlets oft use the most heinous of events as spectacular demonstration, even though that is clearly non-representative of churches as a whole. that alone reaches deep into people's aversion of church, despite knowing all the truths. my best wishes for you and your congregation, and the future of all life. (PB?)
The Catholic Church pedophile scandal has certainly not helped people’s overall perception of religion, nor has the spread of fundamentalist Christianity which takes the Bible quite literally. Another problem is religious politicians who push for prayer in public school, insist that we are a Christian nation, and generally try to shove their particular brand of Christianity down the public’s throats. People feel they can have their own relationship with God and do not feel compelled to follow a particular denomination.
Pastor Bob
I will be leading services tomorrow at my church. I look forward to this every week....I wish everyone a great weekend- PB
"It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, and to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in Holy Scripture, and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. And, insomuch (sic) as we know that by His divine law nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisement in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which has preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own."... Cont'd next post...
..."Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness." [March 30, 1863] [AMEN, AMEN and AMEN!!!] http://www.greatamericanhistory.net/lincolnsfaith.htm
listening to people as they exchange, is like a race to 'fill the dead space' between them with as many uses of the word I as possible.>> I did this, I did that, I went here, I was there, etc. its almost as if they have to impress people, endlessly with the small sphere of 'ME,ME,ME ME" (as you mentioned) and how 'seemingly vital it is for everyone around them to be aware of that sphere that they have wrapped around themselves, where it goes, what it does, who does what to them, etc etc. it is a level of self absorption so venal as to be offensive, as if no one else's life even had substance or reason to 'be', other than their own. as well, parents push their little darlings either into every 'requisite' social activity (lest they be thought malcontents), or push them aside. (as if the child were some kind of obstacle). very little in the way of genuine family or communal values, more of an expression of desperation, even a sense they are struggling to exist in plain view. others may not even notice them, or even rigidly avoid their existence, and worse, often with niggardly disgust or an air of snooty contempt. friendly, they are not, self centered, they very much are. and that is a far cry from what any congregation of good people in common is. it is a divided, separate, chafing, obsessiveness that has no cohesion, let alone any semblance of 'country'.
now as for the sabbath, that's another day of real religion, that's when the likes of what we called preachers years ago, really pound the truth into you, and back it up with a reference manual called, the bible, or some book of their persuasion. no, people aren't lazy, really now, we're just modernified, all living in the church of monetized existence, and by golly, "Thats the American Way", "God save the buck" or at least "pass the buck"' .... (In God We Trust?)