It’s Sunday morning and I’m at home. But my church membership is not in jeopardy. I wish the same could be said for other evangelicals.
So why am I at home? Two of my kids are sick. This is part of family life. The last time one or more of my kids were sick on Sunday morning, my wife stayed home with the kids while I attended Sunday-morning service. This time, it’s my turn to stay with the kids. No means of grace for me today—no preached word, no Lord’s supper. But God’s grace is sufficient; I’ll be back next Sunday morning. In fact, I pray that the entire family will be there because we’ll be having our youngest son, Silas, baptized that morning.
I miss church. I want to be there. Something happens each Sunday through those previously mentioned means of grace, and when I miss the service, I miss out on those elements, which are administered weekly.
Attendance is also, at a bare minimum, part of church membership. Joining with a church community demands that you take part in that community. Many evangelical churches no longer encourage membership, and that’s a loss. It increases the American trend toward individualism and detracts from ideas about community, all of which hurts the church.
These arguments about church membership have been ongoing for decades, but a recent survey indicates that mere church attendance is on the wane among evangelicals. The word “crisis” is now being tossed around to describe the trend among evangelicals to stay home on Sunday mornings.
Julia Duin covers the trend in a recent column, drawing upon findings in Christine Wicker’s book "The Fall of the Evangelical Nation: The Surprising Crisis Inside the Church” and her own new book, “
Duin asks what evangelicals find wrong with church. “I identified several areas,” she writes. “Sermons geared toward babes in the faith instead of mature adults, pastors who don’t get it when it comes to realizing the lives the average person leads, churches that barely tolerate singles (a huge, untapped demographic), churches that have quenched anything having to do with the charismatic movement (which led to significant church growth several decades ago), the never-ending stories of abuse of the Big Three Temptations—money, sex and power.”
So the problem is growing, but being diagnosed along the way. Is it too late to turn things around? Once we’ve clarified the sources of the problem, how do we move toward solutions?
The church has always had problems, and it’s always had disgruntled members. It’s always had some members who are more dedicated than others. But the lackadaisical attitude toward church attendance appears to be on the rise, exposing underlying problems that have long plagued the church but which were easily covered over during the boom in evangelical church growth during the late 20th century.
