Serving God in the Midst of Decline

It can be easy for those serving in church to get discouraged by many of the numbers that seem to be in decline today. While some churches are growing, a greater number of churches are shrinking in most denominations. While many churches are planted each year, more churches are closing their doors. While new people come to Christ each year, the trend is that more Americans are leaving religion altogether.

Beyond those longer-term trends, churches have also been running at partial capacity through the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost a year into the pandemic, 31% of churches were running less than half their pre-COVID worship attendance, according to Lifeway Research. At the beginning of 2021, another 37% reported attendance of 50-75% of what they saw a year earlier. Whether short-term or long-term in nature, most of those serving in the church have seen their church’s numbers decline.

What, then, creates a healthy ministry mindset during a downturn? What can you do to remain faithful, even when ministry numbers are down? Read More

Two caveats—

People are leaving organized religion but are they leaving religion altogether? While some people who left have turned to atheism or agnosticism, others have turned to what is a privatized form of religion. The latter are confirming to our changing culture’s emphasis upon keeping one’s religious beliefs to oneself and practicing them in private and not in public. Our culture no longer sees value in church attendance and public displays of religiosity. Indeed, it decries such displays.

A number of churches have contributed to this development by deemphasizing the public witness of the church and emphasizing spirituality which takes the position that faith in Jesus results in blessings to oneself rather leading to blessings to others. These churches to the eyes of outsiders appear to be preoccupied with themselves and indifferent and insensitive to the needs and concerns of the communities in which they are located.

We are seeing a growth in various forms of divination—astrology, tarot, rune casting, and that sort of thing; seances and other forms of communication with the dead; luck as a phenomenon and belief defining experiences that are notably positive, negative, or improbable; magic, spells, and witchcraft These things have one thing in common: they are all concerned one way or another with the supernatural.

In some ways American attitudes toward religion are coming to resemble those of the Japanese. Shintoism and Buddhism are the two main religions in Japan. They are the two religions to which the Japanese turn at various transition points in their lives. If you watch anime, it is evident that their beliefs underlie the beliefs of the larger culture. However, the number of Japanese who are devoted practitioners of these religions do not form a large segment of the population. The Japanese frown upon religious enthusiasm and excessive religiosity. What we see as growing trends in the United States are also a part of their culture. Individual Japanese will deny any belief in God, but they will buy Shinto charms and take other steps to ward off bad luck and to attract good luck.

What we may be seeing is a resurgence of paganism in the sense of a revival of the beliefs and practices of the pagani, the country folk. These beliefs and practices did not disappear when Christianity became the dominant religion in British Isles, Europe, and other part of the world in ancient times. The migration of various population groups from other parts of the world have added their beliefs and practice from that strata of their culture to the mixing pot.

Are people moving away from Christ or are they moving away from Christians? While some people may be moving away from their perceptions of Jesus, I believe that more people are put off by those who claim to be followers of Jesus than they are Jesus himself. We may not like hearing it, but many Christians are doing a poor job of representing Christ to the world.

In many people’s minds American Christians are not associated with Christ, but with a political figure and a political cause. They hear pastors and other people who identify themselves as Christians talking about politics, not faith, on Facebook. If they have a negative view of this figure and this church, it will color their perceptions of not only the local church but also the larger Church. It will add to the larger Church’s growing public image problems.

If some people have distorted perceptions of Jesus, the attitudes and behaviors that we exhibit can weaken their misperceptions or reinforce them. If we do a poor job of representing Jesus, we will reinforce their misperceptions.