The Church and the Middle Class

[Dave Roberts]

I found this thought provoking. How do the rest of you see it?

[Sandy]

This is a pretty summative quote:

"The working class is poorly represented in our congregations; people in lower classes have little means to support a congregation with time, talent, or treasure, and they perceive little value in the institution."

From a cultural perspective, most churches are aimed at the middle class. There is no shortage of conferences, seminars, para-church gatherings in convention centers, and basketball arenas, all of which have a nice pricetag that lets the featured speaker walk away with a snoot full of cash. Few of those gatherings are aimed at evangelism, most of them are just rallies around a popular speaker. There are a lot of youth events, too, that are aimed at wealthier kids, because the cost of attending is more than kids from many families can afford. In the last church I served, I was accused of being "anti-mission" because I vetoed a para-church sponsored youth mission trip to Japan that was going to cost $3,000 per participant. The youth pastor had already taken two trips in two years to Costa Rica, at $1,500 each. Not sure any of our kids could speak Japanese.