Where is Everyone?

Walk up to someone on the street and ask them what church they attend and inevitably, nine out of ten people will quickly come up with a church where they ‘belong.’ If that is true then why is it that most churches across America are empty every Sunday morning? “According to the Gallop Organization and The Barna Group, more than 40 percent of Americans surveyed said they attended church in the last seven days. Based on that, between 120 and 129 million Americans should be in worship every weekend.” Rev Magazine March/April 2008

America is not telling the truth. People will quickly take a church as their own when pressed, but when it comes to being a faithful attender, well that is another story. Sure, one could go to most churches on Easter, Christmas, or Mother’s Day and find a crowd, but the other 49 Sunday’s during the year is a different tale.

For many people the church that they confess to be their ‘home’ church is in reality the church where their parents attend or even their grandparents attended. The times when they darken the door is to accompany family for holidays and special events.

Most people that have quit attending over the years will talk of busy schedules or different times and a different culture than when their parents and grandparents attended. They will say that the church is boring, or that it is irrelevant for what they are going through in life.

Today many churches are doing cutting edge type of ministries to draw people back in. Instead of the big empty cathedrals that people once thought of as church, they now have small storefront buildings, or they meet in local movie theaters. That seems to be a lot less threatening of a scenario for people to attend.

It is time for the church to recapture those that claim to be attending the church when really they are not. If the message is not compromised, what difference does it make in the manner in which it is portrayed? It is time for the church to fry up some of those sacred cows that they have been keeping in the freezer way too long!