Any institution needs resources in order to survive, and churches are not any different
America is littered with thousands upon thousands of church buildings that aren’t being used anymore.
As you will see below, between 6,000 and 10,000 churches are dying in the United States every single year, and that means that more than 100 will die this week alone. And of course thousands of others are on life support. All over the country this weekend, small handfuls of people will gather in huge buildings which once boasted very large congregations. At one time, America was widely considered to be “a Christian nation”, but that really isn’t true anymore. Asan excellent article in The Atlantic has noted, even though most Americans still consider themselves to be “Christian”, the numbers are telling us a very different story…
Many of our nation’s churches can no longer afford to maintain their structures—6,000 to 10,000 churches die each year in America—and that number will likely grow. Though more than 70 percent of our citizens still claim to be Christian, congregational participation is less central to many Americans’ faith than it once was. Most denominations are declining as a share of the overall population, and donations to congregations have been falling for decades. Meanwhile, religiously unaffiliated Americans, nicknamed the “nones,” are growing as a share of the U.S. population.
In fact, the “nones” have risen from just 6 percent of the population in 1991 to 25 percent today. That makes them the single largest “religious group” in the United States.
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There are some Salisbury churches that fall into these catagories. They had older generations for the last 20-30 years. They don't promote or encourage younger people into their congregations and you see fewer children and in some cases the only children seen are during the holidays when they visit their grandparents. Thank God I am in a church here were there are lots of young people and they take part in all services, and the children are in the adult choir and make up about 1/3 of it.
ReplyDeleteLook at me funny now.Lord over me like you are all that and I'm just a worthless nothing who drug himself in off of the street to keep from freezing to death rather than to worship God.I never judged any of you,but you judged me.Anyone can worship and believe in God,including me.
ReplyDeleteSad that the with “litter” is used to describe many of the old churches. Lots of them are architectural gems and places where love lived for many years. Glad my church has embraced younger generations and is thriving...not to be taken for granted.
ReplyDeleteHence the decay of society.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy our church. But more importantly I love God and he is huge part of our families lives. Merry Christmas.
ReplyDeleteWe left the area recently and are seeing this every Sunday. Where we live now you are considered rural if you are at one Baptist church and can not see another one.
ReplyDeletecould this possibly be related to the failure of parents to instill a love of God in their children? nah! they will be held accountable!
ReplyDeleteWell, seeing ya'll Christians keep hailing from the mountain tops how effective prayer is, my conclusion can only be that no one AT ALL must have been praying to preserve those churches.
ReplyDeleteJust this week there was a post about how prayer and God helped heal a girls cancer, something that is naturally known to go into remission on its own.
I mean, it only logically follows that if prayer worked, and the clergy and parishioners were praying to God about one of his actual houses being in crises.. let alone 100 per week... that this wouldn't be happening. 6,000 to 10,000 per year in the States and it's worse in Europe?
But since it is happening... no one must be praying for these houses of worship.
That, or this is some pretty substantial evidence that prayer doesn't really work.
And may be, just may be... people are realizing that, figuring out that this God thing isn't real, and there is no evidence to believe that it's true.
So they stop going to Church.. because why go?
It only logically follows.
9:05 do you carry car insurance and possibly home insurance if you are able to own one? Why?
ReplyDeleteEveryone one just go to one big church. It's the same Bible.
ReplyDelete