I was reading a document from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life concerning the number of people who change denominations or leave all together. They also listed reasons why. I won't bore you with the details but suffice it to say that 56% of respondents currently belong to the same faith where they were raised.
One commenter summed up the feelings of many when she said "The name on the front of the church is less important than what they church believes and how they live that out". Many describe themselves not as Catholic, Methodist or Baptist but as Christian.
One statistic that caught my eye was the number of "unaffiliated" (don't attend church) who had objections to religious people or institutions. It's not that they don't believe in God, they have issues with the churches. How many in our community don't attend because of misconceptions about us? Since they do believe, it gives us an open door to reach through. We must ask ourselves, if a stranger comes in contact with us, will he see Christ amongst us?
No comments:
Post a Comment