Hi everyone,
I’m looking forward to engaging in the conversation
Hello everyone, I’ve just joined
Hi everybody.
Churches, almost across the board are losing parishioners. Some slowly and some very fast like the Anglicans and the Uniting Church. It is hardly conceivable that they will exist in any meaningful way in 10 years time. It would seem unless churches learn how to tap into the gifts within the members of their congregations their demise is almost certain. They need to be instructing not just the teachings of the bible but on how the parishioners can go out into the world and bring back new converts. Churches need new blood because when the current crop have moved on there is very little there to replace them. We are all Priests, each with gifts given to us by the holy spirit to be used by the church. The greatest apostasy the church can commit is the ignore those gifts and allow the churches to die.
Some say that we can continue on in small, devout groups outside of the traditional church but to me that seems like surviving in life-rafts as the titanic sinks. I don't wont to be in a life-raft, I wont to be in a restored titanic. We had the reformation, we now desperately need a restoration.
@glenn-ambrose It seems to be clear to me that the church congratulations don't care. It almost looks like they are content with the status quo.
@glenn-ambrose I have to my disappointment have not been asked to do anything. When I decided to commit myself to the faith it was suggested by my friends in the church that I get baptised asap. They're a lovely bunch of people but I don't feel like I belong.
I have heard that churches that roll out the red carpet and are loose with the scriptures are waning compared to those that are holding a base set of principles based primarily on bible teaching.
I think the most basic criticism that I have heard of the main churches is that they are failing to bring people close to god. Apparently, they used to do a better job of this in the past.
Thomas Rainer studied 2000 churches and found that without exception, the churches that attracted irreligious people were high-expectation churches. Dr Chris Bader found that "groups that are growing in membership are the ones that require more of their members.
