Informal Poll: The Reasons Why We Can't Find Churches

grandvizier1006 said:

Interesting test, but I'm not sure if it's flawless. My number one was Mennonite, followed by Quakers, and...PCUSA. The first one makes me think of Amish, and the other two permit gay marriage, which is just something I can't "tolerate" in a congregation. If they avoided such polarizing subjects then maybe I could consider it, though.

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It's kind of a meaningless test because it doesn't ask you what you believe is meant by "saved" and "salvation". I think even among Protestants there is not agreement on these terms.

Quakers and the PCUSA are continuing to move toward libertarian positions on social issues and away from conservative Christian values (which I suspect is the result of decades of considering the Bible as only part of the regula fidei).

Not sure about the Mennonites, but they have always seemed like a great group of people to me (like Cloture already stated). I would definitely do your homework before visiting other denominations and at least try to understand what they are supposed to believe, and where they are AND where they are going theologically. For instance, while it did take awhile for the PCUSA to go off the ranch as far as they have, the writing has been "on the wall" for decades now.

Yours and His,
David
p.s. - if you want to check the Amish and Mennonites out, the largest Amish community in the world is in Berlin, OH. If you go, be sure to stay at the Inn At Honey Run in the next community over (Millersburg) if you want an absolutely wonderful place to stay (it's about a 10 minute drive from Berlin and is close by all the other Amish cities in the area). Of course I'm not sure where you live, so Ohio might be a bit of a trip for you. (BTW, in the summer, Amish/Mennonites from all over the country go to their giant community in Sarasota, FL, so that might be a fun place to visit as well).

That's an interesting thought, but I don't think it would work at the denomination level. For that you'd need to track how much influence the more radical "group(s)" within a particular denomination have at the national level, especially if you see them as influential, year after year, at the national conference. With the PCUSA, each year would bring or bring again groups who wanted to introduce things like gay ministers/marriages, "Justice Love" (where ANY "loving" relationship would be considered valid and legal), Sophia worship, etc. There was little question which way the wind was blowing within that denomination

I had Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Episcopal/Anglican. Not really surprised. Not totally surprised. Don't know that much about Episcopalians... this was a neat test though.

Cloture said:

With lack of a good local church being such a dominant topic these days, I'm curious on what people see as the root causes of this. If you presently have no local building/group/congregation that you consider "your church" and you've made at least three attempts in your local area to visit churches, what do you see as being the malfunction?

I have my own thoughts on the subject, but I'd love to hear unbiased comments first.

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In the past, I've had to look around at least that much. But I found the church where I belong. The point is that my experience and what I think from reading a lot of threads here that talk about 'not being able to find a good local church' add up to this--

Unless a seeker lives in a small or remote community, the usual reason he "can't" find a good church is either that he 1) doesn't know what he's looking for and so can't judge, leading to frustration, or else 2) it's easier to throw up one's hands and stay at home...of course blaming an alleged lack of good choices for that.

Rarely do I find someone who is stumped but has actually studied enough to be familiar with the stands and practices of the various denominations, knows what he himself believes, and has visited more than a couple of nearby congregations. You wouldn't buy a house that way, but when it comes to religion, it seems all too common.

Before we moved from a large metropolitan area to a small city of about 10,000 we had attended Willow Creek style Evangelical churches. My wife and I had both grown up in small Baptist congregations and we liked the continuity of doctrine along with the new worship style and friendly and welcoming people in these large Evangelical congregations. When we moved to a smaller city there were no large churches of that type around. We visited a few of the small Baptist churches in town and thought that they were either too traditional or poor imitations of what we were used to in the city.

We settled on what we thought was the least bad option, an Evangelical style Disciples of Christ church where some of our friends attended. The people there were very friendly and the doctrine sounded close enough to Baptist that we were initially comfortable. Over time, however, we began to clash with the liberal attitude of the leadership of this church. We asked for a visit with the pastor who explained that in the DoC there is no "doctrinal test" for membership, and pretty much denied that the DoC has any doctrine at all, "just the bible." I noticed that in some of the denominational posters there were female clergy depicted, which clearly indicated to me that they had at least one doctrine I didn't agree with, and then there was they whole thing about baptism being necessary for salvation. It led me to study the scriptures about baptism and to look at it from a different perspective than the Baptist view I had been raised with.

We had tried to homeschool our children during this time, but we were finding it to be much more difficult than we had imagined. We asked around about Christian schools in town and learned that besides the large Catholic school the only other option was a Lutheran school. We visited the Lutheran school and liked what we saw. I thought that if my children would be attending a Lutheran school then I should probably know what Lutherans believed. Right off the bat I learned that there are two different kinds of Lutherans, the liberal kind and the conservative kind. The church that sponsored the school was one the conservative kinds, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. I started reading up on Lutheran theology, beginning with a book called The Spirituality of the Cross - the Way of the First Evangelicals by Gene Veith. I was amazed at how what I read resonated with my thoughts at the time regarding church and worship. We had grown tired of the contemporary worship and application driven sermons that seemed to be the norm in Evangelical services. I made disparaging remarks to my wife about churches that were like Youth Group for adults. We decided to visit the Lutheran church to see what it was like.

The first Sunday we visited was Life Sunday, not an official part of the church year, but one set aside to focus on the sanctity of human life. We were impressed. The worship service was more formal than what we were used to, and the reverence and solemnity before the presence of God was refreshing. We learned that this was actually the informal service. The next Sunday was even more reverent and solemn, with people bowing to the altar and the pastor blessing us with the sign of the cross. It seemed like this was a church for grown-ups. There was no setting aside of long held traditions in order to seem relevant or hip. The liturgy was about Christ, the hymns were about Christ, the sermon was about Christ and Communion was about Christ. We dived in head first and never looked back.

Now our main frustrations with our local congregations are that in some ways they are not quite as Lutheran as they could be. But we're praying about that.

Fun test. My top three suggested options were Mennonite Brothern (100%), Orthodox Quakerism (94%) and Assemblies of God (90%).

I do it the easy way...I don't go to church at all. I don't like the idea of having to go to a specific building to worship God...neither do I like the idea that 3 or 4 songs is considered "praise and worship". I prefer to go and sit on top of a mountain (there's a bunch of them around here) and lose myself in the unbelievable beauty of what I see around me.

RedPonyDriver said:

I do it the easy way...I don't go to church at all. I don't like the idea of having to go to a specific building to worship God...neither do I like the idea that 3 or 4 songs is considered "praise and worship". I prefer to go and sit on top of a mountain (there's a bunch of them around here) and lose myself in the unbelievable beauty of what I see around me.

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Sounds reasonable. The only issue here is "What does the Bible teach about that?"

The Bible teaches believers to be private when engaged in personal prayer but not to forsake gathering together with other Christians for worship. It sounds like you've got about half of that correct.

Albion said:

Sounds reasonable. The only issue here is "What does the Bible teach about that?"

The Bible teaches believers to be private when engaged in personal prayer but not to forsake gathering together with other Christians for worship. It sounds like you've got about half of that correct.

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how about you not worrying about what I do...I just said I don't go to church. I see no point in it...now...gathering with others, I do...however, I do not feel the need nor have the desire to do it in a building designated a "church". That's the WORST place to go "worship".

And...who decided that 3 songs performed in rock concert style complete with lighting and stage show was "worship"?

Thanks, I'll stay on my mountain and watch the glorious sunrises and sunsets

.

Because Church Feels like this.

Cloture said:

With lack of a good local church being such a dominant topic these days, I'm curious on what people see as the root causes of this. If you presently have no local building/group/congregation that you consider "your church" and you've made at least three attempts in your local area to visit churches, what do you see as being the malfunction?

I have my own thoughts on the subject, but I'd love to hear unbiased comments first.

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I think the highlighted part sums up the most common reason. People seem to think that with thousands of denominations in existence and at least hundreds of them present in any average-sized community, three visits will basically be all that's needed to survey "what's out there."

There are only a half-dozen or so car companies, and the same people wouldn't consider buying a new car from any one of them without doing more research than they do when looking for the right church.

I think the biggest issue today is that people in churches don't display an christ like spirit or seem any different than people outside of the church. The church is not the witness that it should be. We should be models of love and forgiveness and that simply isn't always the case. Though there always seems to be some good people in most congregations

The thing I look at the most, is the theology. Of course I also look at a few key ethical issues which have rarely been a reason for me to exclude a Church. I'm comfortable with several different worship styles. I've chosen the Anglican Church. In my CF mini-profile it still says Mennonite since I think it's important not to have a military defense system, go to war or manufacture weapons.
i'm going to find out more about the details of theology.
I also look at how broad canon is used: the explanations that those who have the 66-book canon have, are pretty poor - I've never heard an adequate explanation and am not arguing about that.
I don't think my parish generally rules them out, but a common problem is, like others mentioned, that Churches don't attract people of my age who are not married and don't have custody of kids. The same can be said about who are allowed to become priests or pastors: a lecturer even admitted that the biggest Church in this country are actually seeking for the "pure" to become priests. I applied for a job for this Summer (four Weeks) and didn't get it. I'm pretty certain there were only two reasons: lack of grades, and "lack of purity" - just as if they were able to judge that latter part! And if they wanted to see grades I think they should have been honest from start and said that that was what they were looking for so that I wouldn't have needed to apply at this point, because I think I just made a fool of myself in vain. There were a couple of things I could have added in the interview that I didn't come to think of until right after the interview such as that I don't use foul language. It's pretty scary that one actually needs say that one is not using foul language! That leaves me wondering whether they think anything good about me before they know me! Those are the only things that actually bug me.
I think my priest didn't believe I was very serious about the faith back then almost a year ago when I called him and had just told him a few days before that what denomination I was aiming at. I suppose he doesn't need to believe anyone is really serious. But I sure had not told him how much effort I had spent on finding out about the differences between different denominations. Since then I've also gathered lots of tools to find out about differences in details on a pretty extremely detailed level. And I now have the biggest Anglican Systematic Theology, bought used in a Bible Study software. In fact I have enough books and features so that I won't be buying about anything more when it comes to these things, I do however buy some things in the other Bible Study software: Accordance.

There are lots of positive things to say about the parish I attend: such as the great facilities, good sermons, welcoming atmosphere, and that they are thinking of and saving up for ways to save on expenses in the long run such as the heating system. Just to name a few things from the top of my head.

I'm a Messianic Jew, so I don't feel like I fit in a Synagogue or a typical Church. I also need a more moderate, compassionate church as conservative churches are too full of hypocrisy and hate imo. Tough combo to find.

St_Worm2 said:

p.s. - if you want to check the Amish and Mennonites out, the largest Amish community in the world is in Berlin, OH. If you go, be sure to stay at the Inn At Honey Run in the next community over (Millersburg) if you want an absolutely wonderful place to stay (it's about a 10 minute drive from Berlin and is close by all the other Amish cities in the area). Of course I'm not sure where you live, so Ohio might be a bit of a trip for you. (BTW, in the summer, Amish/Mennonites from all over the country go to their giant community in Sarasota, FL, so that might be a fun place to visit as well).

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I visit Berlin, Millersburg, and the surrounding small towns several times a year. It is one of the most peaceful places I've been to. The Inn at Honey Run is architecturally amazing and in a lovely setting. I usually prefer to stay at a place called Tranquil Acres Cabins though. For less than half the price, you get an outdoor hot tub, an indoor jacuzzi, gas fire place, gas plumbed grill and cooking facilities. I have to have cooking facilities because I have food allergies. There is a lot to do in the area, but you might have to seek to find it. But blessed are those who seek, right?

Cloture said:

Another place here used a collection of Beatles songs as the soundtrack for their Easter Sunday program. We watched a video of an actor picking up the Bible while "Let It Be" played in the background.

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I went to a church this morning that replaced the entire sermon with a guy playing secular songs on his acoustic guitar. No bibles were opened, not one scripture was quoted. I walked out when he started playing Eric Clapton.

There is no longer a "fine line" between the church and the world. You can walk into any bar on the street and find literally the exact same thing as I walked out of this morning.

designer mom said:

I went to a church this morning that replaced the entire sermon with a guy playing secular songs on his acoustic guitar. No bibles were opened, not one scripture was quoted. I walked out when he started playing Eric Clapton.

There is no longer a "fine line" between the church and the world. You can walk into any bar on the street and find literally the exact same thing as I walked out of this morning.

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It all depends on which church you attend. Many have not gone over to this kind of thing. I hope you seek them out.