Post by rapha777 on Feb 15, 2005 3:37:51 GMT -5
February 15, 2005
Alarming Number of 'Stayaway Saints' Affecting Today's Church
An alarming number of Christians are staying home on Sunday mornings and the trend is affecting today's church. Believers who have become "stayaway saints" are alternately worrying and exciting church leaders, pointing to what is being seen as either a serious threat to the spread of the gospel or the actual cusp of a revolution that could usher in the sort of revival many have prayed for and dreamed of for years.
A recent study by The Barna Group, a California-based Christian research organization, found that about 13 million Americans whom the researchers identified as being born again were "unchurched ... not having attended a Christian church service, other than for a holiday ... at any time in the past six months."
Revival historian and teacher Andrew Strom found painful evidence of "a worldwide phenomenon." After speaking on radio about what he has dubbed the "Out of Church Christians," and writing about them in one of his e-newsletters, he was bombarded with responses from people around the world telling him, "Me too."
He found "people leaving the church in droves." "It got so bad, I got carpal tunnel problems trying to answer them all," Strom told "Charisma" magazine in the February issue, out now. The full report on stayaway saints can be found in the magazine.
"I was really surprised by the response. It told me this was no longer a small thing -- it had become much bigger," he added
David Barrett, author of the World Christian Encyclopedia, estimates there are about 112 million "churchless Christians" worldwide. He projects that number will double by 2025 -- though it includes both nominal believers and those part of underground churches in nations where they face persecution for their faith.
Concern about the growing number of Christians she had met who no longer attended church regularly prompted Pat Palau, wife of international evangelist Luis Palau, to collaborate last year on a book, "What to Do When You Don't Want to Go to Church."
Ted Haggard, senior pastor of 11,000-strong New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., and president of the National Association of Evangelicals, sees the abandonment of regular churchgoing as more than just a personal preference.
"It's a huge problem in the fulfillment of the Great Commission because God is the one who established the local church as His primary method of discipling people. So we lose the united prayer support, the financial strength, the missionary efforts," he warned.
He believes pastors have been the reason many have left the church. "They have been let down by church leaders whose children are wild and disobedient or who are in adulterous marriages," Haggard said.
Though some church dropouts are finding new expressions of church life, which he welcomes, Haggard does not believe the answer is to bury the institutional church. "We need to get it healthy and dynamic," he said. "There's no mystery to that -- just as there's no mystery about how to have a healthy marriage and wonderful children."
For further information on this topic:
Planted: Finding Your Place in the Church Today - by Robert Gay
Alarming Number of 'Stayaway Saints' Affecting Today's Church
An alarming number of Christians are staying home on Sunday mornings and the trend is affecting today's church. Believers who have become "stayaway saints" are alternately worrying and exciting church leaders, pointing to what is being seen as either a serious threat to the spread of the gospel or the actual cusp of a revolution that could usher in the sort of revival many have prayed for and dreamed of for years.
A recent study by The Barna Group, a California-based Christian research organization, found that about 13 million Americans whom the researchers identified as being born again were "unchurched ... not having attended a Christian church service, other than for a holiday ... at any time in the past six months."
Revival historian and teacher Andrew Strom found painful evidence of "a worldwide phenomenon." After speaking on radio about what he has dubbed the "Out of Church Christians," and writing about them in one of his e-newsletters, he was bombarded with responses from people around the world telling him, "Me too."
He found "people leaving the church in droves." "It got so bad, I got carpal tunnel problems trying to answer them all," Strom told "Charisma" magazine in the February issue, out now. The full report on stayaway saints can be found in the magazine.
"I was really surprised by the response. It told me this was no longer a small thing -- it had become much bigger," he added
David Barrett, author of the World Christian Encyclopedia, estimates there are about 112 million "churchless Christians" worldwide. He projects that number will double by 2025 -- though it includes both nominal believers and those part of underground churches in nations where they face persecution for their faith.
Concern about the growing number of Christians she had met who no longer attended church regularly prompted Pat Palau, wife of international evangelist Luis Palau, to collaborate last year on a book, "What to Do When You Don't Want to Go to Church."
Ted Haggard, senior pastor of 11,000-strong New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., and president of the National Association of Evangelicals, sees the abandonment of regular churchgoing as more than just a personal preference.
"It's a huge problem in the fulfillment of the Great Commission because God is the one who established the local church as His primary method of discipling people. So we lose the united prayer support, the financial strength, the missionary efforts," he warned.
He believes pastors have been the reason many have left the church. "They have been let down by church leaders whose children are wild and disobedient or who are in adulterous marriages," Haggard said.
Though some church dropouts are finding new expressions of church life, which he welcomes, Haggard does not believe the answer is to bury the institutional church. "We need to get it healthy and dynamic," he said. "There's no mystery to that -- just as there's no mystery about how to have a healthy marriage and wonderful children."
For further information on this topic:
Planted: Finding Your Place in the Church Today - by Robert Gay