The flood of people leaving the organized church has been a concern for many years. The latest finding seems oddly familiar to earlier reports in the 80′s and 90′s and is about 70% according to the WSJ, research done by Lifeway Research in 2007. The article also goes into some of the “wanna-be” cool churches are stepping over themselves with gimmicks to be “relevant”.
Perhaps the best line is this one:
What it has not considered carefully enough is that it may well be putting itself out of business with God.
In the search to be relevant to the culture the church shouldn’t forget the one key phrase the Father gave the disciples. “This is my son, Listen to Him…” If the church loses it’s relevance to God then it really doesn’t matter how “successful” it will become in the culture. The Old and New Testament is full of examples where his people became disconnected from their Creator. Could that happen now? Has it already happened? You tell me what you think.
But are these gimmicks really going to bring young people back to church? Is this what people really come to church for? Maybe sex sermons and indie- rock worship music do help in getting people in the door, and maybe even in winning new converts. But what sort of Christianity are they being converted to?
In his book, “The Courage to Be Protestant,” David Wells writes:”The born-again, marketing church has calculated that unless it makes deep, serious cultural adaptations, it will go out of business, especially with the younger generations. What it has not considered carefully enough is that it may well be putting itself out of business with God.
“And the further irony,” he adds, “is that the younger generations who are less impressed by whiz-bang technology, who often see through what is slick and glitzy, and who have been on the receiving end of enough marketing to nauseate them, are as likely to walk away from these oh-so-relevant churches as to walk into them.” – WSJ