The Angus Read Institute reported last year that in Canada in 2000 30% of Canadians attended a religious service at least once a month. By 2015 that percentage of even occasional attenders had dropped to 23%.
John Pavlovitz thinks he knows why people are leaving church.
Here are three reasons (two more tomorrow) John Pavlovitz suggests people are leaving church with some comments from me and a few quotes from his original piece which should be read in its entirety at: http://www.churchleaders.com/outreach-missions/outreach-missions-articles/244545-dear-church-heres-people-really-leaving.html/1
1.Your Sunday productions have worn thin.
According to Pavlovitz, glitzy worship is not adequate to sustain consistent church attendance. In fact, depending on any external form to sustain church attendance is a recipe for failure. It does not matter how slick the packaging may be, it is worth nothing if we lose touch with the content that church exists to embody in its corporate life.
Church is a body of broken people. We are those who know we fail to measure up to the beauty and light for which we were created. We are a messy community of untidy people united in our awareness of our need for grace and mercy. We gather because we acknowledge our need to surrender our lives to a power greater than ourselves. The more glitzy, flashy, and professional we try to look, the more we risk obscuring the message of God’s gentle grace.
2. You speak in a foreign tongue.
Church, you talk and talk and talk, but you do so using a dead language. You’re holding on to dusty words that have no resonance in people’s ears, not realizing that just saying those words louder isn’t the answer. All the religious buzzwords that used to work 20 years ago no longer do.
This spiritualized insider-language may give you some comfort in an outside world that is changing, but that stuff’s just lazy religious shorthand, and it keeps regular people at a distance. They need you to speak in a language that they can understand. There’s a message there worth sharing, but it’s hard to hear above your verbal pyrotechnics.
So much of what we do in church aims to keep comfortable those of us who are already on the inside. We cherish the warm feeling we get from our familiar language and our habitual ways of doing things. We are not interested in finding out how the things we love may be an obstacle to people who did not grow up with our customs and traditions.
Our unwillingness to take seriously the gap between our cherished little religious world and the great big world outside church, makes it impossible for us to connect with people for whom church-land is increasingly strange and unfamiliar territory.
- Your vision can’t see past your building.
Our tendency to venerate our buildings is deadly. When one of Jesus’ disciples leaving the temple commented on the great structure of this revered place of worship, Jesus replied,
Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down. (Mark 13:2)
To the degree that we cling to any external form rather than the God to whom they are intended to point, we are holding on to a reality that will always let us down. Church exists to point beyond buildings, beyond styles of worship, or liturgy, or particular cherished patterns of leadership.
We need to launch out bravely and find the path God is setting for the church today not cling to the forms, styles and patterns that may have worked in the past to point to God.
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More from John Pavlovitz or visit John at http://johnpavlovitz.com
In A Spacious Place 
6 comments
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April 4, 2016 at 3:38 pm
Neil Girrard
Is this Christopher writing? On another thread you were unable “to enter into a protracted conversation on this issue” yet here you are on this new thread opening up the same can of worms. How does that work? Were you just avoiding the issues? I’ll have to take back my defense of you to those who thought you were just scamming your way out of the discussion.
You wrote:
>So much of what we do in church aims to keep comfortable those of us who are already on the inside.
On the inside of what? Jesus hardly ever spoke of the “church” but instead spoke often of the kingdom of God. The people inside God’s kingdom bear the fruit of His Spirit, follow the Lamb wherever He goes because He is their King and the Love of their life, speak only truth and understand the kingdom truths contained in the NT as opened up to them by the Spirit of truth.
The “church” on the other hand, is the vessel for the deceptions of the end times, a place where one can be comfortable and anonymous in one’s sins and can be encouraged to believe one’s self “faithful to God” because their backside is planted in some pew or chair and the guy up front scratches their ears oh-so-well.
Sure, some people are leaving “church” because they can’t get “church” done their way. But there are a lot of people who have come out of the “church” because God told them to (2 Cor. 6:17-18, Rev. 18:4) and because they could no longer tolerate the putrid smell of death that wafts through the pews and out the doors. We have left the “church” because we couldn’t find Jesus there any more.
Neil Girrard
paidionbooks.org
April 4, 2016 at 5:16 pm
Tress Backhouse
Not many people are book learned philosophers . From what I have read in the bible .Jesus did not spend his ministry having intellectual conversation with the intelligentsia , but rather spoke to the heart of people. trying to have them see the beauty that God has created for us to nurture , and the love that we should bear for each other .
I admit that my interests in finding the meaning in life have taken me away from established worship, but after a long life I come back to the belief that the beauty of perfect love is best understood when we set aside our criticisms and understand , that whilst we al have different makeups. , we can only further understanding with the help of tolerance and the forgiveness of our own arrogance.
April 4, 2016 at 5:25 pm
Neil Girrard
Hi Tess – pleasure to e-meet you!
You wrote:
>Not many people are book learned philosophers
Yet we are the people of The Book! If we haven’t learned from The Book as opened to us by the Spirit of truth, what have we learned? If we can’t rightly divide the word of truth, then why do we keep the Book?
You wrote:
>we can only further understanding with the help of tolerance and the forgiveness of our own arrogance.
Jesus said that we would be led into all truth by His Spirit of truth. Is there some reason to believe that He lied or was mistaken? Yes, we must be gentle with those who oppose the truth but that does not mean that we are supposed to surrender the truth and live – and cozy up to those who live – anyway their flesh wants to. The flesh, which wars against the Spirit of God, is quite comfortable at most “churches” these days. Isn’t that a good reason to leave? What would be a good reason to stay?
Food for thought.
In His love,
Neil
April 4, 2016 at 5:41 pm
Tress Backhouse
Neil Gerard — Either I have expressed myself badly or you are confused by my meaning ! I have no wish to argue, To me you simply did not understand my position. I never was interested in counting the angels on top of a pin! Love of my neighbour is not after judgement!
April 5, 2016 at 4:12 pm
Neil Girrard
Tress wrote:
>Jesus did not spend his ministry having intellectual conversation with the intelligentsia , but rather spoke to the heart of people. trying to have them see the beauty that God has created for us to nurture , and the love that we should bear for each other .
It is not a case of one or the other, that is, mind vs. heart – there is place for both in the real way of following Christ. In fact, God’s highest priority has always been “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
Jesus did speak privately to Nicodemus, a premier teacher of Israel. Paul told Timothy to be sure to bring the scrolls. Peter made special effort to leave a written record that would survive him after his death. We ARE supposed to study the written words but we must LIVE by the words spoken by Him who gives life – and these two, when rightly gleaned and divided by the work of the Holy Spirit within us, will not contradict one another.
What we have done in churchianity is exalt the educated “theologians” and the popular “teachers” and given them the right to say who is right and who is not. We have stopped listening to the voice of Him who gives life and taken up listening to men who scratch and tickle our ears. Anyone who wants to know God’s real truth almost has to become a Bible scholar just to avoid all the pitfalls and traps the “theologians” and “teachers” have laid around our feet!
Nealreal wrote: “The institutional church is the collected group of Christians who don’t want a relationship with Jesus Christ on his terms, but on their terms. Therefore, they create and serve a false Christ which leads to bondage, a lack of power and a delusional mindset that believes he/she will inherit eternal life when in fact will be damned to hell if there’s no repentance.” ( http://letspleasegod.com/2009/11/institutional-church/ I highly recommend you go read this guy’s article for yourself!)
Tress you also wrote:
>Either I have expressed myself badly or you are confused by my meaning!
I hate to have to say it but I think it’s the former that is causing the latter. I don’t want to argue with you either. I don’t have time for that. I’m here to lay out some truth and extend a personal message to Christopher from the Lord. I will monitor this blog for a little while but my life is too full to keep up on it full time or for very long. Plus I’ve learned that those who have ears will hear and those who don’t won’t.
Christopher, I must speak straightforwardly to you. While God is calling people out of the “church,” you’re here trying to lure people back in with your thinly disguised intellectualisms. Thus, you don’t have time to discuss what the Bible really says but you have plenty of time to look at reasons why people are fleeing the “church” so that you can discover ways in which to draw them back in. The demise of one’s career choice is always daunting to face – but it must be completely terrifying when you’re fighting GOD to keep a job you’re only now discovering that He never invented! Jesus still intends to destroy ALL the works of the devil and that includes the humanly cherished traditions of men that war against the Spirit of God.
Christopher, God is calling YOU to come out of man-made religion, to come away and follow HIM and stop luring unwary sheep back into the same deadly “church” trap you’re in. I pray you will hear and heed HIS voice.
In His love,
Neil Girrard
paidionbooks.org
April 5, 2016 at 2:10 pm
Dave (TruthForFree.com)
I’m taking an honest look at this post Christopher, similar to the previous post you wrote that attempted to understand why many folks have lost interest in church, and I see some worthy points here. I sincerely do.
In a significant way, I can find agreement with a number of your observations about Sunday productions wearing thin and the bit about speaking in a foreign tongue (i.e. using terminology that doesn’t connect with most people today)… I think you are accurately acknowledging these realities and I can appreciate your admission that such things are not helpful to the cause of encouraging people to draw together unto Christ in a meaningful way.
However, there still seems to be this core conviction you’re manifesting that church ought to be salvaged if at all possible; If we just fix the problems, then it will be good like it should… The problem is, not only does church (i.e. organized religion) generally always tend to degrade into conflict with better spiritual ideals, but the entire fascination with maintaining church continues to sidestep the reality of Scripture – because the hard truth is, Scripture neither defines, supports, nor recommends this thing called “church” (the way you have identified it).
In my opinion, you have completely failed in demonstrating (from Scripture) why “church” as you understand it needs to be salvaged. My argument is not to suggest that the existence of some building a person might label a “church” will send anyone to hell simply by existing… nor is my argument that people choosing to participate in social clubs or organizing efforts for various causes is always bad. But when people tend to elevate those things to a place of essentiality, they inadvertently are working deception by taking what God calls the Church (i.e. the body of Christ) and redefining it to give legitimacy to their own man-made distraction. That, my friend, is what’s evil. Probably a lot of folks who end up participating in this deception are not deliberately intending to be deceptive, but I pray this ignorance is exposed because just as we know in law that “ignorance of the law is no excuse”, so it is true that ignorance of deception does not lessen the reality that it is deception and repentance is required.
To clarify (for the sake of others who may read my comments), let me say that it is absolutely true that the Scripture refers to a “church”, but it (Scripture’s reference) is not the same concept as the one Christopher seems to have centered his conversation around. Scripture’s concept involves a (or rather “the”) body of people that belong to Christ. Their membership is not in some organization, but in His family. The Lord’s concept of Church is a spiritual family, born and residenced in heaven. Any physical gathering on earth does not itself makeup the Church, but the Church (which is specifically God’s people) may indeed gather. The gathering is NOT the Church, though the Church may gather here or there, now and then. Likewise the religiously-dedicated buildings made with the hands of men are NOT that Church, nor are they required. Church (as God defines it) does not need a building or a program to exist or gather. The fellowship of the body is a reality first realized as our position in Christ; i.e. we are in fellowship with Him and therefore with each other, through Him. That fellowship exists IN HIM even if no gathering occurs physically on earth. This is the only “Church” Scripture refers to; which is the body of Christ – the Family of God – comprised of all who are born again.
At times Christopher, in your post, you almost acknowledge this division between what the Lord finds essential compared to the distraction of churchianity, but then you seem to get sidetracked again and return the emphasis to church (i.e. religion). This article was probably better than the last (in my opinion) but even though you left things with an appeal to find God’s way, it was not even simply that – rather it was your assertion that we need to find “God’s way for doing church.” You’re neglecting though to confront the question, “What if God isn’t interested in man’s continuance of this thing man labels ‘church’? What if God has absolutely no intention at all to spend any efforts to fix man’s invention or save it? What if God even wants man to utterly leave it behind?” These are questions I believe you should be confronting and encouraging others to confront as well. Instead you leave the reader, not with an invitation to seek the Lord wholly for themselves, but instead you direct the reader with an objective in line with your personal bias that intends to hold on to church no matter what. You leave in their minds the implication that God himself has need of church and so you suggest that we need to simply find out how He wants us to continue doing it. This, for me, invalidates every potential good admonition you previously offered in your article. You cleverly found a way to return the primary focus, not to the Lord, but to the necessary maintenance of organized religion. This saddens me greatly.
I know I have already said it, but I’ll say it again for emphasis… Church, as Scripture identifies it, is NOT a religious organization or building (and life in Christ is not “religion”). I think you must know this… Do you? If you do know this, they why would you continue to emphasize something that God himself has not sought to emphasize? On what authority do you hang your evidence on, that people should take your word for this undying devotion to churchianity? No really, I want to know… Why is this so important to you, that you would even imply that it’s important to God? Surely, you must have some kind of foundation of evidence that would effectively prove you are on God’s side of the issue? I can tell you this, that I believe I can effectively prove that the concept of devotion to organized religion is NOT on God’s side of the issue, but rather than get into all that detail here, I would simply invite folks to visit my website where I have blogged on this subject in considerable detail.
Church, quite plainly (and quite simply-stated), is the body of Christ. Nothing more, nothing less. It is not dependent upon religious temples or specially organized religious meetings or membership rosters, tithing obligations, weekly sermon monologues by an elite religious professional, or any of the many other man-made concoctions that end up being attributed as part of what constitutes “church”. Churches (as we are typically familiar with today) literally have NOTHING AT ALL to do with what Scripture identifies as “the Church”. I think that is an essential point.
Even if you think there is value in your religious meetings, you ought to at least be able to differentiate between what the Bible refers to as “the Church” and what you like to regard as “church” (which is something entirely according to the design, manufacture and label of man). Christopher, I think I could even respect your view if you were able to honestly acknowledge the complete lack of biblical support for the infatuation you have with organized religion. It would be one thing for you to admit, “Hey look guys, I know that church as I’m talking about here isn’t in the Bible. I know that organized religion and church buildings and rituals have nothing to do with being a Christian. I know that God never commanded a single person in the Bible to build a church or attend one. I know that no one needs to attend or belong to a church to be saved or even to engage a vibrant relationship with God and that going to church doesn’t guarantee anyone will be more spiritual or more right with God than someone who doesn’t… BUT, I personally just happen to like being a part of an organization and religious social club. I enjoy that. I find personal benefit in it and I so I choose to support it.” That kind of admission I would find little problem with because you would be adequately separating your personal emotional attachment to a non-essential activity from the completely unrelated definition God gives for what comprises His Church. If you were able to simply talk about the enjoyment you find in participating in an organizational environment, but clearly admit to all that your enjoyment is not to be equated with Scriptural requisite, that would be much less of a concern. The problem comes when people are led to believe that man’s concept of organized religion is what the Bible intends by the use of the term “church”. That, my friend, would be what is known as a lie against the truth.
The modern religious system has taken the Lord’s idea of people who have been called BY HIM out of darkness into His marvelous Light (and assembled together IN CHRIST JESUS – into a SPIRITUAL house of LIVING stones; a spiritual house not made with the hands of men) and they have replaced it with a purely non-biblical, entirely man-made religious notion (and they continually fail to let anyone in on this or admit it). Instead of the organic, living body of Christ – they understand (with your assistance Chris) “church” as a temple, a weekly ritual, or a religious social club. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to call this a deception, for that is indeed what it amounts to. Despite the fact that you indicate you would like to see more focus on Christ where “church” (as you describe it) is concerned, this doesn’t correct the problem that people have be led along with a faulty understanding of church to begin with (and you, sadly, continue to support that faulty understanding). I get that you like “church” (according to your concept of it), but I am appealing to you as a fellow brother in Christ to speak wholly the truth and make a clear separation between your interests as opposed to God’s directives. I will have far more respect for you then.
I do appreciate your acknowledgment of the reality that so much of what folks do in “church” aims to keep comfortable those on the inside and that those on the inside tend to grow accustomed to their way of talking (that isn’t readily understood by those on the outside) and their habitual ways of doing things, that make it impossible to connect with people on the outside that don’t relate to those things. I appreciate that you are able to look at this environment of religion you are accustomed to and see how it has alienated people and not served the interests of Christ for His people. I can understand your concern of not wanting this to be how “church” remains focused. I can see that you’re are implying that there needs to be change that better reflects the character of Christ and the fellowship quality of the family of God in manifestation… But while I sincerely appreciate your honesty here and wish to acknowledge the positives of which I am encouraged by in some of your comments, I’m failing still to see how this examination has anything to do with the Lord’s concept of the body of Christ or why it matters that much. It has only to do with the typical kinds of problems a social club might run into when dealing with outsiders.
No matter how much value you may personally find in attending a social club you call “church”, the Church of Jesus Christ is NOT a social club that is managed through organizational oversight and housed in special religiously-dedicated buildings. I wish you would acknowledge this truth plainly. I wish you would flat out admit that though you may personally find value in organizational participation, the Scripture does NOT teach it, example it, suggest it, or necessitate it by any means whatsoever! Can you admit this? Will you admit this? Will you tell the honest truth in your article that church (i.e. organized religion) just doesn’t matter at all where Scripture is concerned?
Understand that I am not suggesting that this fact that the Lord’s true Church is NOT a social club or religious organization automatically makes the organization or social club aspect “evil”, but it certainly doesn’t make it relevant to anything Scripture identifies as pertaining to the true nature of the Lord’s Church.
To put this another way, I am failing to understand why you think it bears so much concern to examine this issue of why many people are leaving organized religion, when Jesus NEVER introduced it to begin with, NEVER taught it, NEVER commanded anyone to engage in it, NEVER instructed His apostles to build, maintain or manage anything of the sort, and not a single apostle in Scripture ever built one, started one, attended one, or taught anyone to occupy their attention on such a thing. Furthermore, Jesus NEVER worried about any such nonsense.
What you have in Scripture (and even in very early Christian history in general) is a complete and total absence of anything we might refer to as “church” the way it is thought of today. What therefore does it matter that we pay it (organized religion) any significant attention? I will plainly tell you what I believe, based on what I observe in Scripture, IT SIMPLY DOES NOT MATTER AT ALL (though it might matter if it be leading people into error)! And if that be true, then why would you hope that we may find some way to maintain it and persuade people into that which the Lord has no design for?
Your post makes a lot of really great points, but I believe it fails on conclusions… Perhaps that’s just a result of where you’re at right now. Perhaps your writings are indication that the Lord is tugging on areas of your heart concerning these things. If that be the case, then I pray He continue His work and I pray that you will receive the wisdom to recognize what He is teaching you and the courage to follow it.
When I speak about your great points failing in their conclusion, here’s an example of what I mean… Your item number 3 that talked about “not being able to see past the building” was great, but then your conlusion was misguided. You said: “Church exists to point beyond buildings, beyond styles of worship, or liturgy, or particular cherished patterns of leadership.” My friend, I have to ask you, what Scripture gives you reason to conclude that “church” (as some kind of ritual religious organization) should exist at all? Where does God’s Word tell you (or us) that “church” exists to point beyond buildings? Church, by man’s very definition IS ABOUT BUILDINGS. Church, by man’s very definition IS ABOUT STYLES OF WORSHIP, LITURGY, AND PARTICULAR CHERISHED PATTERNS OF LEADERSHIP!!!! That is entirely the definition of “church” according to religious thinking. That’s even where the English word “church” (not the biblical term Ecclesia) came from. Can you not see this? Why can you not see that if your statement be true, that church exists to point beyond those things you mentioned, then it would be true that church is therefore no longer necessary at all!!! Since church embodies those very things, if you agree that we are to look beyond those things, then why can’t you?
You say, “We need to launch out bravely and find the path God is setting for the church today not cling to the forms, styles and patterns that may have worked in the past to point to God.” That almost sounds like a noble objective, but I must sincerely ask you, why do you believe God is now setting a path for something that Scripture confirms that He never told anyone to busy themselves with or build in the first place? Why does God need to inform man how to improve what God never ordained or was concerned with to begin with? Shouldn’t man submit himself to the will of God and leave his own way behind to follow the Master?
The only evidence we find in Scripture of some kind of religious organization or special religious edifice is the one that God Himself utterly expired; the Temple! Jesus told the people, “Your house is left unto you EMPTY and DESOLATE.” Put another way, “God has left the building”. Though if you study, He never wanted to be put there in the first place! God’s design from the beginning was the concept of “tabernacle”, which is a mobile dwelling place. It was fashioned with skins, just like we are fashioned with skin and God’s presence lives within and among us. Israel wanted a king like other nations, though God did not desire this. He wanted to be their only King, but the people clamored. David desperately wanted to build God an official house of worship, but God refused him at first. God later allowed Solomon to build the Temple, but again, this was never His primary concern… and that is why God did away with entirely when Christ fulfilled all things. Man, however, has not let this mindset go. Man continues to beg God for kings; they just call them senior pastors, bishops and priests now. Man continues to be fascinated with temple building and temple worship, they just call it “church” now. Man has utterly traded God’s intention for the body of Christ for man’s own invention of church and organized religion. Just as God said that Israel was rejecting Him because they asked for a king, the same is true with the whole fiasco of organized religion today. It’s the exact same smell entirely. Stephen said plainly to the religious folks in his day, “the Most High doesn’t dwell in houses made by man,” and those religious folks stoned him to death. Stephen also rightly said that they were stubborn headed and resisted the Holy Spirit just as their ancestors did.
Man says, “We NEED a special building to organize Christian gatherings (and we need money to finance it, liturgy to program it, hierarchy to govern it, entertainment to attract people to it, guilt trips to keep people in it, etc.),” but Scripture indicates for us that God is rather saying, “JUST GATHER WHEREVER YOU LIKE. Maybe simply around your dinner table with family and friends. Love one another as I have loved you.” There is NOTHING in Scripture that even hints at your purpose for what you define as “church”. Your definition of “church” is NOT God’s definition. That fact, and it is a glaring one, invalidates all the rest of your article, unfortunately.
I do not know of any New Testament doctrine that suggests God appoints inanimate objects like buildings and programs to “point people to God”. The Scripture rather says that God himself is the one that draws men to the Father! Scripture teaches us that God calls us to be daily transformed into His image, that His light might shine through us to others (like a light on a hill). God calls HIS PEOPLE the body of Christ and says that THEY (those people) are His Ecclesia (His Church). When you use a completely different definition for church that Scripture has zero agreement with, you are inadvertently operating in deception. I don’t know whether this is in ignorance or not, but if it is I am appealing to you to regard the truth now and leave the error behind. If you did not understand this before, now you ought to. Since you have been made aware of the truth that Scripture nowhere defines the Lord’s Church as a religious organization or building, you should STOP implying/defining it as such yourself and therefore leading others along with this delusion.
Again, Christopher, though your article makes some noble admissions, it unfortunately fails in its conclusion because that conclusion does not agree with the Lord’s definition of Church. It only agrees with your own. While I respect your freedom to write anything you like and hold any opinion you like, I reserve the freedom to point out in challenge that your conclusions are not based in Scripture and therefore are irrelevant to Christianity as a necessity. I think your head is in the ballpark, but I encourage you to press into the Lord and seek His mind on this more than your own. All of us have stumbled at times and God is able to illuminate His truth to us if we are willing to humbly bend our knee. God be with you.