Part 1: The Burn Factor  Why are more men and women claiming to have been burned by churches? Can you recall a time in your life when someone in a church hurt your feelings? A pastor? A fellow congregant? Have you been ignored by a church? Shunned? Judged? Insulted? Does the very idea of going to church disgust you? The phrase “I was burned by my last church” is becoming increasingly spoken within Christian circles and religious culture as a whole. What exactly is this phenomenon of church burning? Church attendance surveys and investigative research from 2008 reveal some rather striking percentages. According to current religious data gleaned from multiple sources and polls and cited by ReligiousTolerance.org, “Confidence in religious institutions has hit an all-time low.” Although there is a supposed increase in the interest of spirituality in North America, it has yet to manifest itself in the form of increased church attendance. The data shows a gradual decline in attendance of church services within the Protestant denominations since 1992. Between 1992 and 2003, attendance dropped by as much as 13 percent. Interestingly, graph charts reflect a sudden leap in church attendance just after the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. However, Only 53% of Americans consider religion to play an active and important role in their lives. This number has been steadily declining since the aforementioned September 11th attacks. Over the past ten years, there has been a significant increase in the number of church home groups and small group Bible studies. Unfortunately, this may very well be reflective of the poor perception many longtime churchgoers have adopted concerning churches. Pat Howell, 60, has attended several churches since childhood and admits he hasn’t been “burned” by a church. “I think hurt is the right word,” he clarified. “Not burned.” However, during the course of our interview and subsequent discussions, Howell reminisced of one particular church in which individuals even drove away the pastor. “Someone in the church decided they didn’t like him [the pastor]. They started to say things about him that weren’t true. There were questions about the sexual preferences of the music minister. Someone brought all of this up. To this day I still know who it was and I hate them. I hate to say that, but I do. [This person] started just enough of a rumor to kill the spirit in that church. They did everything horrible that you could possibly do to a preacher. They cut the power off to his house. They were mean to him. After about six months, he left.” Howell recalled the blatant hypocrisy present in the church community. “You wind up going to churches and looking at people that you knew had caused someone else’s pain and suffering. The church did not split, but it was not the same.” He added, “They didn’t turn me against my faith, they turned me against that [particular] church and the idea of attending that church.” Unfortunately, Pat is not alone. There are too many stories like his. Many are worse. More and more men and women are referring to their churches and fellow believers with such disheartening adjectives as: condemning, tactless, smug, fake, unforgiving, arrogant, ignorant, homophobic, intolerant, pushy, rude and unloving. But what is at the heart of church attendance decline? Is there a problem with the people? Is there a problem with the churches? Why are more and more Christian men and women church hopping? And perhaps the most important question to be pondered: “What does a real, honest and healthy church look like?” Stay tuned for Part 2 and all subsequent sequels of this feature, which will dissect the elements needed for healthy church functionality and growth. |
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