{"id":68825,"date":"2023-09-06T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2023-09-06T10:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=68825"},"modified":"2023-09-02T18:21:52","modified_gmt":"2023-09-02T22:21:52","slug":"are-changes-in-the-church-contributing-to-de-churching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2023\/09\/are-changes-in-the-church-contributing-to-de-churching\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Changes in the Church Contributing to De-Churching?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Yesterday we blogged about a just-released book entitled\u00a0The Great Dechurching: Who\u2019s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

In Daniel Darling\u2019s review of the book for World Magazine<\/em><\/a>, he\u00a0focused on the curious phenomenon of believing, orthodox evangelicals who have just stopped going to church.\u00a0 According to the research, the reasons are neither political nor theological.\u00a0 The reasons they give are more \u201cpedestrian,\u201d basically that for whatever reason\u2013COVID, some change in their lives\u2013they just got out of the habit.<\/p>\n

But why haven\u2019t they resumed the habit?\u00a0 Why has church become so unimportant to them that they no longer find it to be a necessary part of their faith?<\/p>\n

I have argued that part of the problem might be that evangelicalism has created the impression that church is unnecessary.\u00a0 What\u2019s important is an individual\u2019s \u201cpersonal relationship with Jesus Christ.\u201d\u00a0 Furthermore, individuals are taught that all Christians can interpret the Bible for themselves.\u00a0 This doesn\u2019t cause evangelicals to leave church, but it certainly gives them permission to do so.\u00a0 This contrasts with the more traditional understanding that Christians need to hear God\u2019s Word and\u00a0 receive the Sacraments continually, in fellowship with other Christians led by a called, prepared, and ordained pastor in order to stay and grow in their faith.<\/p>\n

But I think other factors are also giving committed Christians, along with everyone else, the permission to sleep in on Sundays.<\/p>\n

As is well-documented, the last few decades, church attendance and affiliation have dropped dramatically.\u00a0 Over those same decades, evangelical congregations have changed dramatically.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to consider whether or not those changes have contributed to the decline.<\/p>\n

I recently came across the statistic that 70% of American Christians attend only 10% of the churches<\/a>.\u00a0 The last few decades have been the era of the megachurch.\u00a0 Even small churches have adopted the megachurch model, adopting contemporary worship, missional strategies, preaching styles, and other elements of the church growth movement.\u00a0 These changes have been pervasive across the whole spectrum of contemporary Christianity.<\/p>\n

I do not wish to reignite the worship wars.\u00a0 I am not denying that these changes have been popular.\u00a0 And in many cases these changes have been successful in growing very large congregations.\u00a0 I just think it\u2019s fair to ask, is there anything about these changes that might make Christians less<\/em> committed to going to church?<\/p>\n

Certainly, one church growth tactic that many churches have adopted is to do away with \u201cmembership\u201d altogether.\u00a0 \u00a0People today aren\u2019t \u201cjoiners,\u201d we are told, so it\u2019s best not to require people in the pews to make a formal commitment so that they \u201cbelong\u201d to the congregation.\u00a0 I\u2019m curious how this arrangement shows up in the \u201caffiliation\u201d statistics.<\/p>\n

But I have seen evidence that, even in megachurches that do have membership, there is a great deal of turnover in the people who attend.<\/p>\n

Most of those who attend megachurches, for all of their focus on \u201cseekers,\u201d are not new converts to Christianity\u2013though I praise God for those who are\u2013but, rather, Christians who have left other churches.\u00a0 Sometimes, I am told, these are small churches and sometimes they are other megachurches.<\/p>\n

Does this create a habit of transience that weakens Christians\u2019 tie to church?\u00a0 Could this be a factor in the rise of \u201cnon-worshipping evangelicals\u201d?<\/p>\n

The church growth model is, again, highly oriented to \u201cseekers.\u201d\u00a0 The emphasis on evangelism is very much to its credit.\u00a0 The aim is to make converts.\u00a0 That focus on new Christians can be salutary.\u00a0 But for Christians who have known Christ for a long time, though they might at first appreciate the evangelistic atmosphere, after awhile, it might seem like there is not much there for them that they haven\u2019t already heard over and over again.<\/p>\n

Whereas, traditionally, church was oriented to the entire lives of its members, geared to their spiritual growth and sanctification.\u00a0 For us Lutherans, the Christian life begins with Baptism, even for an infant, proceeding through catechesis, confirmation of faith, and all the passages of life\u2013marriage, having children, catechizing one\u2019s children, working in vocation, getting old, dying\u2013and at every moment we continue to have recourse to the Law and the Gospel, the forgiveness of the various sins we commit at every stage, and a growing and deepening knowledge of Our Savior.<\/p>\n

Does contemporary worship, with its reliance on popular musical styles, also contribute to the growth in \u201cnon-worshipping evangelicals\u201d?\u00a0 Not that many people are getting angry and leaving the church because they don\u2019t like or approve of this new music.\u00a0 On the contrary, they do like it.\u00a0 But the very nature of pop music\u2013understand, this is not a criticism, but a description of what it has to be\u2013is to be of the moment.\u00a0 One pop style must be succeeded by another pop style, as relatively simple aesthetic forms are exhausted and new ones come into fashion and take their place.\u00a0 This happens because listeners get tired of music they once loved and constantly need something new.\u00a0 Some churches stick with the praise songs of the last century, while others work hard to stay up to date.\u00a0 Either way, what a church goer who attends a congregation for a relatively long time will pick up is one of transience.<\/p>\n

To complicate matters, popular music today is highly segmented and compartmentalized.\u00a0 There is no longer one style that appeals even to a single age group.\u00a0 In virtually any group of teenagers, you will find a multitude of different musical tastes (techno, house, electropop, hard rock, soft rock, hip hop\u2013this source lists 75).\u00a0 And privileging one style alienates the fans of other styles.\u00a0 As a result, it has become hard to hold people in congregations by means of \u201cpopular\u201d styles of music.<\/p>\n

Whereas, traditionally, church music was its own style\u2013unconnected to what people listened to at home and representative of no particular group, other than the church itself. And the lyrics of the hymns and gospel songs, as well as the multi-part melodies, exemplified a classical aesthetic, designed not just for a \u201cmoment\u201d but for all time, expressing universal and inexhaustible truths and emotions.<\/p>\n

To be sure, the megachurches are still mega, even though total church attendance is plummeting.\u00a0 How do we account for that contradiction?<\/p>\n

Yes, traditional congregations are losing members too.\u00a0 There are many reasons for that, as The Great Dechurching<\/em> shows, including people no longer believing what these churches are teaching. But are they losing members who still \u201caffirm orthodox Christian beliefs\u201d but just don\u2019t want to go to worship services anymore?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to see some research on this.<\/p>\n

But it is surely fair to assess the changes that have been made to church.\u00a0 They certainly have not stopped the decline in the number of people going to church.\u00a0 The question is whether they have contributed to it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n