There is an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed:
Who says when people leave church THEIR faith is the deficient one?
Let me tell you about some of the leavers or nearly gones in our town:
Some are Lutherans and Presbys of the groups gone liberal. They simply will not stay where ordination and weddings for gays is happening. Some are UMC and are not going to stay where the denom is rapidly heading down that path. Many of those are now over at the local Nazarene church. Others were part of churches that have swallowed the word of faith pill, and have left.
There were two Baptist churches: an SBC and a very fundamentalist one. The SBC went from dispensational free grace congregational governance to the TULIP elder ruled complete with membership covenants that have you promise not to take a job transfer without elder approval. (Or it said that years ago when those folks left. Cannot say for sure now.) The fundy one went through a church split. Now we have 4 tiny Baptist churches, 3 of which are unaffiliated with any convention. One is very much Gothard like. There is also a tiny cowboy church not officially Baptist but functions like one.
Some of the dispy free grace people simply worship at home like the leavers of those other denoms.
There are issues of worship style, worship music, sermon lengths, etc also. Folks who either due to taste or for reasons of conviction shun rock and roll are not going to stay in the local contemporary churches. Before you blast them as not saved or petty Christians or not caring about the lost, remember every blast you make could also be said of proponents of contemporary.
Folks who believe in evangelistic services of an hour or so won't sit through long dry sermons.
But here is the good news: people here are not impressed with strings of letters after names or so called erudite theology. They may be gifted singers, gifted musicians, gifted teachers, and men called to preach not theology but the Bible with a message of sin and salvation. So they meet. In the park. At McD's and Starbucks. In homes. At the rodeo arena. At the lake. At the forest service campgrounds.
In short, as Fletchers Jowers sings, they have "church at the wagon."
Sometimes we have to consider that it may be the strong, real, in-the-right believers leaving when church becomes a man ruled man centered business AKA an unholy mess.
Who says when people leave church THEIR faith is the deficient one?
Let me tell you about some of the leavers or nearly gones in our town:
Some are Lutherans and Presbys of the groups gone liberal. They simply will not stay where ordination and weddings for gays is happening. Some are UMC and are not going to stay where the denom is rapidly heading down that path. Many of those are now over at the local Nazarene church. Others were part of churches that have swallowed the word of faith pill, and have left.
There were two Baptist churches: an SBC and a very fundamentalist one. The SBC went from dispensational free grace congregational governance to the TULIP elder ruled complete with membership covenants that have you promise not to take a job transfer without elder approval. (Or it said that years ago when those folks left. Cannot say for sure now.) The fundy one went through a church split. Now we have 4 tiny Baptist churches, 3 of which are unaffiliated with any convention. One is very much Gothard like. There is also a tiny cowboy church not officially Baptist but functions like one.
Some of the dispy free grace people simply worship at home like the leavers of those other denoms.
There are issues of worship style, worship music, sermon lengths, etc also. Folks who either due to taste or for reasons of conviction shun rock and roll are not going to stay in the local contemporary churches. Before you blast them as not saved or petty Christians or not caring about the lost, remember every blast you make could also be said of proponents of contemporary.
Folks who believe in evangelistic services of an hour or so won't sit through long dry sermons.
But here is the good news: people here are not impressed with strings of letters after names or so called erudite theology. They may be gifted singers, gifted musicians, gifted teachers, and men called to preach not theology but the Bible with a message of sin and salvation. So they meet. In the park. At McD's and Starbucks. In homes. At the rodeo arena. At the lake. At the forest service campgrounds.
In short, as Fletchers Jowers sings, they have "church at the wagon."
Sometimes we have to consider that it may be the strong, real, in-the-right believers leaving when church becomes a man ruled man centered business AKA an unholy mess.
