The Great Dechurching Will Hurt Poor People

[robt.k.fall]

The Great Dechurching Will Hurt Poor People
May 29, 2024 at 4:53 pm
Kevin Schaal


> Churchgoing is good for the poor and vulnerable in a variety of ways: it gives people moral guidance on how to live their lives. It gives them opportunities to directly serve others as a community. It results in tithes that are then spent on a wide variety of charitable works. These things are not salvation, and it is certainly possible for someone to be warming a pew for 50 years without a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. But any person is far more likely to find Jesus while nodding off in a pew than watching Netflix in bed.
>
> It’s brutal to look at any decline this severe in any set of churches. While some conservatives may feel the temptation to smugly remark about the results of theological liberalism, that feels about as appropriate as a lecture about the dangers of drug addiction during the funeral of a young person who died of an overdose. Conservative evangelicals are facing their own demographic challenges, and non-denominational megachurches are overtaking denominational identity. The Great Dechurching is bad news for all Christians, no matter how you slice it.

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[Wingman68]

Perhaps if the churches hadn’t strayed from their roots, their people wouldn’t have strayed from them. I see myself in the second paragraph but I will not go along to get along. This is a typical blame shift from a liberal mindset.

 

[Silverhair]

The Great Dechurching Will Hurt Poor People
May 29, 2024 at 4:53 pm
Kevin Schaal


> Churchgoing is good for the poor and vulnerable in a variety of ways: it gives people moral guidance on how to live their lives. It gives them opportunities to directly serve others as a community. It results in tithes that are then spent on a wide variety of charitable works. These things are not salvation, and it is certainly possible for someone to be warming a pew for 50 years without a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. But any person is far more likely to find Jesus while nodding off in a pew than watching Netflix in bed.
>
> It’s brutal to look at any decline this severe in any set of churches. While some conservatives may feel the temptation to smugly remark about the results of theological liberalism, that feels about as appropriate as a lecture about the dangers of drug addiction during the funeral of a young person who died of an overdose. Conservative evangelicals are facing their own demographic challenges, and non-denominational megachurches are overtaking denominational identity. The Great Dechurching is bad news for all Christians, no matter how you slice it.

Source: The Great Dechurching Will Hurt Poor People ( The Great Dechurching Will Hurt Poor People )

Add a comment to this post: The Great Dechurching Will Hurt Poor People

Dechurching as you call it is not based on financial position it is based on personal choice. There are as many temptations before the "poor" as the "rich". No one is forced to turn away from God or to stay away from church.

Due to a number of factors I can not attend church in person but I can and do listen to two and often three services. I find it strange that many will blame all their troubles on anything but themselves and we always have those that will support them in their blame game.

 

[Deacon]

Having moved recently, my wife and I have had the opportunity to visit quite a few churches over the past few months.

Many of the churches are very good; clean, well maintained buildings, quite a variety of good music, good sermons and good, friendly people.

The one that impressed me most was not necessarily the one that had the best of all of these but the one that displayed the clearest mission for reaching out into their community.

Where I live is quite rural. We travel more than half an hour to a nearby town. We are no longer as young or spry as we used to be. But I still desire to be part of a ministry that is alive with the desire to reach out to those who are needy, whether they know it or not.

Rob

 

[Dr. Bob]

Churches have always led in ministries to others, per the Second Great Commandment to love others. Charity, food pantries, hospitals, rescue missions, relief organizations, orphanages, adoption, crisis pregnancy centers, camps, schools, are "big" and noticeable efforts of which a local church is a small but needed cog/

Effective ministry to those in need is often most effective on a local one-on-one basis. But where do the average believers get knowledge and training, encouragement and emphasis, for doing this? Not from TV evangelist or reading a book. It is from a local church, a pastor, a group who are discipled to minister to those in need.

And apart from all the "ministries", the GREATEST way to help the poor/needy is to share the life and eternity-changing message of the Gospel. Billy Graham once mistakenly said that a person in the inner city whose child who is sick needs free medical care and better housing/food before they will hear the Gospel. Truth is, they need the Gospel above ALL the other secondary help.

 

[timf]

"The poor" as a collective group is a result of the general collectivizing of society. Sadly this began when churches became organizational systems instead of a group of believers. One result of this is that the government is now the mechanism for delivering what used to be Christian charity. Also Christian groups like Lutheran social services and Catholic charities have become paid agents to settle illegal immigrants in the US.

I do not see in the bible how Christians are called to collectively address the needs of others. Rather I see Christianity about individual relationships, us with God and each other.

The poor (that we will always have with us) are in that condition for many reasons. One of which is zoning that results in unaffordable housing. Another is a consumer society that amplifies our natural selfishness often increasing the use of drugs and alcohol. Another is low employment resulting from exploiting the weak in other countries. This is similar to the depressed wages that resulted from trying to compete with the slave labor in the 1800s.

There are many contributing factors to poverty. However, it is not our responsibility to design the best way to run a worldly society. As Christians we are called to respond to whatever opportunities we encounter.

Gal_6:10 As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.