Last week I had no speaking engagement, so I attended our church, obviously. That’s what followers of Jesus do, go to church. After the 8:00 service, I noticed about half-a-dozen clusters of people chatting with one another at various places in the sanctuary. They were all people who worship every week. When I went downstairs to the fellowship center, I saw the same thing but in bigger numbers. More clusters of people visiting and a line of chatty folks getting coffee. This is the picture of a healthy congregation.
Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal reported, “Americans are going to church less often….” “The steady, long-term decline in church attendance is confirmed in the most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. Just 29% of Americans now say they attend religious service once a week or more often. That is down from 41% in 2000. At the same time, the share of Americans saying they never attend religious services has risen to 26%, almost double the 14% who said so back in 2000. The rise in churchlessness is most dramatic among young Americans,” 18-34. “Now the share of these younger Americans who never attend religious services has more than doubled, to 36%”
Those clusters of people I saw? They were older people. Our congregation is blessed to have a parochial school, and many healthy congregations without a school have vibrant child and young adult programs. Are young people integrated into the weekend worship of the congregation? Or do they see worship as something for old people. If they’re not taught to cluster and chat in church, where will they do it when they’re older?
Gerald Seib commented on the WSJ/NBC poll. “For generations, churches and synagogues were among the main institutions around which Americans organized their lives. More than just houses of worship, they have been places where Americans unite, find identity and often educate their children. The decline of such communal bonds alters how many Americans identify themselves and find like-minded compatriots.” (WSJ, June 25; A4) That agrees with many social commentators I’ve read. The mission of a congregation today is more than dispensing Word and Sacrament, as eternally important as that is. More than before in our lifetimes, we go to church because this is the community we need in this bewildering, impersonal world, a safe, loving community in Him and with one another. Obviously?
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