When it comes to religion, the USA is now land of the freelancers.
The percentage. of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation. The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist. The Rust Belt is less Catholic. And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers ”” or falling off the faith map completely.
These dramatic shifts in just 18 years are detailed in the new American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), to be released today. It finds that, despite growth and immigration that has added nearly 50 million adults to the U.S. population, almost all religious denominations have lost ground since the first ARIS survey in 1990.
Will those who have heard His Word and have rejected or disobeyed it be told,
“I don’t know you?”
In the market of ideas, the church is losing.
Or maybe the Church is becoming truly ‘invisible’.
Read this about 5 places. The media is recycling news. Most journalists don’t have a good nose for where the real news is.
And yet, CANA grows. Just doesn’t seem fair, does it?
Dilbert, don’t forget ACNA!
Sorry, Cennydd. No slight intended. I’ll take any combination or permutation of any number of A’s, C’s, and N’s so long as they add up to orthodox and non-TEC.
BRAVO! Me, too!
Ah yes, but when TEC loses ground they have lawyers on staff to sue to get said ground back!
“Ah yes, but when TEC loses ground they have lawyers on staff to sue to get said ground back!”
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They may get “said ground back” but will that ‘ground’ remain Holy ground.
CANA and ACNA will grow for a while, siphoning people from TEC.
But what is the average age of those churches? What is their average size?
Beyond any short-term gains some Anglican groups may experience, there’s a long-term, not-easy-to-answer issue here that the Church as a whole will face for decades, at minimum: How do you reach people who have [i]no[/i] church background at all and who not only have no desire to step inside the doors of one, but for whom the very idea of church is something foreign? It won’t be done by just inviting people to church or to Alpha. It will require significant amounts of time, energy, and love from everyday Christians in the lives of their friends and neighbors, at a time when people (both Christians and non-Christians) tend to use their homes as a retreat from the pressures of work/everyday life and know very few of their neighbors. And if clergy are going to train the laity to do that, it probably will mean cutting back on programs at the local church so that laypeople have the energy to spend times with non-Christians. And it may often mean bringing elements of church to people who aren’t Christians rather than waiting for them to come to church.
In recent years, churches that have been successful with evangelism have, by God’s grace, been largely seeing fruit from people who have had a church background at some point in the past (even if long ago) and are, thanks to the work of the Holy Spirit, now ready to come back. That’s important, and something for which to thank God, but eventually the United States will probably be filled overwhelmingly with people without a church background.
Greetings.
[b]Ralph Webb[/b] [url=””]12[/url] asks:
[quote]How do you reach people who have no church background at all and who not only have no desire to step inside the doors of one, but for whom the very idea of church is something foreign?[/quote]
I am [i]almost[/i] the person you are talking about, in that I do feel some attraction towards stepping inside a church, though I have no church background and am unbaptized. That being so, perhaps an observation or two would not be out of place. For the record, I used to read and comment here, though not for some time (and probably not in future).
First, [url=”http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/7561/#144109″]not all Anglicans[/url] (I use that term deliberately) seem to think that the kind of outreach you describe is necessary or desirable. It seems legitimate to ask whether you may be better off waiting for the Holy Spirit to send you those who belong with you rather than inviting all and sundry. I am certainly not qualified to answer that, but some do seem to hold that view.
I have read more than a little about Anglican Christianity, but never actually set foot in an Anglican church. Since I live inside the Beltway in Northern Virginia, it’s not as though I don’t have choices (I can literally throw a stone from my doctor’s office and hit TFC; I usually drive by Truro or Apostles once a month or so just going about my business. There are even Continuers around; I work not too far from St. Andrew and St. Margaret of Scotland). Why not just “taste and see” rather than read books and the blogs? It seems the practical thing, no?
All I know for certain about what’s going on in Anglican churches is the current Anglican Civil War, which seems to be happening to some degree even within the reasserting movement. The ability (and perhaps necessity) to participate in that is [i]not[/i] what I am looking for. You may say that there is much more than that going on inside — maybe so, but I can’t see it, not from where I am.
It may be entirely unfounded, but I also worry about being a a fiftysomething male with no wedding ring. I’m divorced, not gay, but I’m afraid to look like some kind of gay-activist infiltrator.
FWIW, I feel no particular attraction to TEC churches. I may be wrong about this, but it seems that I could just as well listen to NPR and read the Post in bed of a Sunday morning as go to one of those.
I am not casting a gauntlet or trying to pull your nose; the man asked a (rhetorical?) question and I am one of the people to which he made reference; nothing more.
regards,
JPB
Hello, JPB. Good to hear from you again. We (Anglican conservatives) are hoping that we can now begin being the Church we wanted to be and stop fighting (un)civil wars. You’re right; the civil war hasn’t been too attractive to outsiders. But maybe you should just drop in sometime. Any of those alternatives would be fine. And if the place you try looks askance at your ringless left hand, then you can move on to the next place to try. What looks and feels “right” to you is probably where you ought to be, within certain doctrinal limits. I’m a believer, so I have to say that! No sense in going to a church where they don’t know what they believe and can’t help you with it either. Peace.
JPB, my question was not rhetorical, but serious. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. As a member of Truro, I can tell you that we’d be happy to have you visit at any time. Peace of Christ to you.