Why are People Quitting Church?
A quick note: If itâs
annoying you that I keep throwing out provocative topics for you to address,
and then I pay no mind to the comments youâve already made, please accept my
apologies up front. I will address them! I mentioned last week that Iâm away in
meetings with the leadership of my group of churches. Weâre in, of all places, Alaska. If youâre filled with jealousy (Iâm posting
this before I leave), it might comfort you to know that rain is predicted EVERY
SINGLE DAY that weâre there. Am I
bitter? Iâll leave that to you to
decide.
As I mentioned in the last post, Iâve just begun a book
called Quitting Church by Washington Times
religion editor, Julia Duin.
She started following Jesus during the Jesus People revival of the early 70s and she laments the difference in her church experience now as compared to what she saw then. Church today, she writes, is all far more predictable; the teaching is almost entirely divorced from life as we actually live it (she has little good to say about seeker churches); if one were to miss a given service, one wouldnât miss much; thereâs little actual pastoring of actual individualsâ needsâ¦and Iâm only 40 pages in. Iâm sure thereâs more.
I like Duin's writing style and approach. I actually find herâand Christine Wicker with
The Fall of the Evangelical Nationâmore
helpful than I often find evangelical pollsters and researchers. Somehow the outside perspective (thoughâto
some degree at least--Duin regards herself as an evangelical) seems more clarifying
to me.
And yet I wonder whether sheâs hit the heart of the problem. Yes, churchesâIâm sure my own very much includedâare lousy in too many ways to list adequately. But Iâm not sold that churches that experienced the Jesus People revival were, as a rule, led by wiser and better leaders. If so, where are they and their protégés now? Why arenât they having the same success now that they had then? Was the preachingânot just by a few superstars, but across the boardâso much better then, the pastoral care so much better then, the small group structure so much better then?
Or, perhaps, were they in the middle of a social and spiritual revival that was bigger than any of them?
For our purposes here, letâs assume people are in fact quitting evangelical churches in droves (both small churches and megachurches). Why do you think that is? Are they lousier now than they used to be? Orâ¦whatâs your take?
