As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“In our age of solitary, do-it-yourself forms of spirituality, research indicates, regular in-person attendance at worship services is central to the well-being of children, adults and society.” - GetReligion
“Most people active in a church really do think their church is friendly. These members have relationships and interactions that give them that perceived reality. But when we interview guests of the same churches, we hear a different story.” - Rainer
“Baptists of past generations were famous, not only for the frequency with which they excluded members, but for the variety of offenses that were considered worthy of exclusion. One of those reasons receiving renewed attention is non-attendance.” - 9 Marks
“A majority of churches didn’t start holding in-person services again until June 2020. By September 2020, 87% met physically, but that dropped to 76% in January 2021, according to Lifeway Research studies conducted at the time. In August 2021, however, only 2% of churches did not meet in person at all.” - Lifeway
“A Pew Research study finds 64% of Americans who typically attend church at least monthly attended a religious service in person in September 2021—up from 43% in March 2021 and 33% in July 2020.” - Lifeway
“Two noticeable reasons stand out among the reasons young adults stop attending church for at least a year between ages 18-22: 32% dropped out because church members seemed judgmental or hypocritical 25% dropped out because they disagreed with the church’s stance on political/social issues” - Lifeway
“New research shows that Americans’ religiosity increasingly doesn’t line up with whether they officially belong to a congregation.” - C.Today
“DJ Soto began preaching in the world of virtual reality (VR) in 2016. He is the founder and bishop of Virtual Reality Church, a church that is intended to be radically inclusive and consistent with Christianity’s long history of adapting to new forms of media.” - C.Leaders
“The National COVID-19 Church Attendance Project (NCCAP) represents our efforts to try to see the bigger picture. By gathering as many individual church stories as possible, from all over the country, we aim to provide a broad sense of the impact of COVID on the church and what the path to recovery has looked like so far.” - C.Today
When it comes to church participation, it is tempting to label the unenthused as probably unregenerate. Although this may be the case, it might be that professing believers who have lost the desire to come to church are simply socially anxious, isolated, and fearful of commitment. What I call “socially disconnected.”
Discussion