You've Heard of the Nones? Meet the Dones.

[Sandy]

https://www.baptiststandard.com/news/fa ... ired-of-it

My question in most of these surveys is how they come up with the percentages of who is in and who isn't in church. I guess most people just give a "yes" if they went once or twice in their life. A fellow blogger from Alabama pointed out that among Alabama Southern Baptists, only about 35% of the total membership actually attend church on any given Sunday, and that the figure for the other Protestants was about 45%. I guess it depends on how you count "nones" or "dones," but if current church membership as reported in the most recent Handbook of Denominations is accurate, about 150 million Americans, or just slightly under half, are members of Christian churches. If only half of that is in regular attendance, it would seem that the percentage of nones and dones would be higher than it is.

[Tim Bonney]

I think it is hard to compare stats from one denomination to another too. United Methodists have baptized members and professing members. I believe we only count professing members in our national stats. But I think the RCC may count baptized infants, who maybe never go to church, as members.

I'd say in my church the percentage of attendance verses official membership is more like 25% or a little more. Some of those are folks we've lost track of, have joined other churches and didn't tell us etc. Also we have people who attend church regularly and never join.

[linda]

Geography has us exceedingly close to being "dones."

We are conservative Christians. Here the churches with conservative teaching are also rock concert style contemporary. We geezers hate it, as do the grandkids (grade school) and their parents. (30-40somethings.)

But the services we can truly worship in--traditional, or even a tad high church, or even all the way to liturgical are extremely liberal. Extremely.

What do you call people that love Jesus, love worshiping and serving Him, but just settle for fantastically good Sunday School and then leave?

Polite terms, I mean. We've heard the others.

[Tim Bonney]

Linda,

I don't know what to call it but you really do need a worshipping life as well as Bible study.

It is a real paradox to me that it does tend to be more liberal churches that have traditional worship and conservative churches that have abandoned traditional worship. Does that mean that conservative Christians don't have a theology of worship? Or does it just mean the theology is "worship is music and a sermon." ?

I wish I could make a suggestion that would help.

Without wanting to start an argument, what do you mean by "liberal, liberal in the extreme" ? That might give me a frame of reference.

[linda]

Pastor Bonney--thank you for your reply!

We would probably just settle in nicely to the local UMC as it has been pretty middle of the road and had "traditional" type service. Then it went really high church for a UMC and we really loved it. Currently it is transitioning to the contemporary format. Still not too bad and an option. But we as grandparents and the grandkids' parents are not too happy with a song leader who makes the point regularly that his "lady" is his life partner, not his wife and never will be. Being on the evangelical conservative side, we have a bit of trouble with the large (to us, I know) number of lesbian couples in leadership. Note I said leadership, not attending. Calvary covers it all but some things do in my opinion disqualify us from leadership.

We'd make great Good News Methodists--not so great in this specific locale.

Local ELCA was always one of the conservative confessing churches in that denom until about 3 years ago with change in pastor. Now it is fast moving into welcoming and affirming and also into removing all references to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit along with any references to sin and need of a Savior. I always appreciated the Brief Order of Confession and Forgiveness opening a service. Personally, I need to remember my flaws, shortcomings, and sins and my need of Christ. It has been replaced with a rewritten version of the thanks for baptism, so it now basically says I'm so glad I'm NOT sinner in need of a Savior.

Only other quieter worship in town is PCUSA. Besides not being a five pointer, again the parent denom goes places my conscience won't.

There are several hyper fundamentalist Baptist groups here with good service styles, but we don't want the young'uns thinking unless you are YEC, ladies live in dresses with long hair, etc you are not really saved.

So we attend SBC and Nazarene Sunday Schools. Once in a while we will do a worship service, but with one kid with perfect pitch and very sensitive hearing the rock concerts are just out for us. Southern Baptists are currently transitioning from rock concert to a much quieter form of contemporary. Not to our tastes but if it continues we could grin and bear it if the preaching is sound. New pastor coming, so no clue there on that last point yet.

We do hear good preaching by using the web for live stream or archived services "elsewhere." And we do worship as a family at home.

And yeah, it is so strange that the most conservative services in town are at the most liberal churches, and vice versa.

[Tim Bonney]

Thanks Linda! That helps me with clarification.

It is true that in the United Methodist Church that persons who are LGBT are not barred from serving in any kind of lay leadership position the church wants to put them in. The rules are different for clergy (a much longer discussion that would be off topic here.)

You are not the only person I know who has run into this dilemma. I've tended to pastor the more center left to liberal churches that have traditional worship or if they have contemporary worship it is an option and not the only service.

I had a couple attending a previous church of mine who really were more conservative than my church but they felt that worship with us filled their needs better than a contemporary service. I'm sorry people end up having to make those kind of choices.

For me, the answer for worship has been to provide options. My Sunday morning service is blended leaning strongly traditional but I'm going to be starting a Sunday evening service which will be contemporary giving people a choice.

I hate to see church abandon traditional worship because a huge number of Christians want it. And a huge number of young adults don't like contemporary worship. So elimination of traditional worship, IMHO, is short sighted.

[Sandy]

I guess my seminary training provided me with a theology of worship that has allowed me to be able to have a sense of God's presence with just about any style of worship. I got into some deep thoughts about it several years ago, sitting in the sweltering heat and humidity in a cinder block church with a dirt floor, backless wooden benches, a corrugated tin roof and 250 Guatemalan Christians packed into a space that 100 Americans wouldn't squeeze into, lizards, flies and all. There was no instrumental music, but the human voices more than made up for the volume. Those Christians came to church to meet with God, and that was their focus. It made me realize that I focused more on the quality of the music, or my own personal comfort, than what I'd been taught in seminary, which is that worship is the vehicle that takes you to a meeting with God, not the one that brings God to a meeting with you.

I served for half a decade in a church in Houston that had a traditional service at 8:30 and a service with contemporary style music (two guitars, bass, drums, keyboard), at 11:00 with Sunday School in between. It was a congregation of about 300, and at first, it was evenly divided between the two services. But the contemporary service eventually grew to over 250 regularly, while the traditional service hovered around 130-150. And the contemporary service attracted all of the new church members, and was where most of the baptisms occurred. The music style was what you might call a little bit on the louder, rockier side. The fear, when the church decided to do this, was that it would separate the church by age, but that didn't happen. Many of the older members came to the contemporary service, while some of the younger ones opted for the traditional service. For me, the experience was made more worshipful by the attitude of the members of the worship team, who were all very humble, and conveyed a desire to lead worshippers to God, rather than to focus on their own talent and ability.

[linda]

Sandy, I'm happy you can worship in any style. You do realize, however, that your post sans facial gestures, body language, etc could come off as just more beating the sheep who cannot worship in the louder, rockier style.

So it sounds as though you mean that if we prefer NOT to destroy the gift God has given one child, perfect pitch and sensitive hearing, we are somehow "less" as Christians than those who are willing to do so.

When she was a toddler she literally hid out under the pew at the evangelical (SBC) church. When we tried liturgical and traditional she became the most ardent little worshipper you could ask for. To this day she uses the gospel abc's (at 10) to witness and lead others to Christ. She sings in and out of church in choirs and does solos. She plays piano and is learning other instruments.

Somehow, I don't see it as not being there with a heart of worship to just NOT GO to churches that leave her with ringing ears, severe headaches, or cringing in pain.

Seems it would be a tad more Christlike for those that inflict the pain to listen when others leave in tears from the painful music.

Don't think that when Jesus said suffer the little children He meant lets make people suffer if they come to church, especially the children.

But this does explain why some of us are pretty well "dones" when it comes to the church services. Not done with Jesus, just done with what is currently passing for church. Not all that different from those we are told won't attend unless we do the rock concert style.

[Sandy]

Not intending to imply that one style of worship is better than any other, or that anyone's choice of worship style makes them "less Christian." Though churches are made up of people, and none are perfect, in my own experience, the style and choices of elements of worship have been carefully and prayerfully considered by those charged with its leadership, and the consideration was never about what type of worship best attracts people, or about personal preferences, but it was about how to worship in a way that pleases God and brings people into his presence, and followed a scriptural model. If you'd been in the church I served in Houston, you'd have had a worship option to attend that would have met your need for something quieter for your child, and more to your liking in terms of style. If you were nearby where I live now, I'd invite you to my church, a conservative, evangelical Christian and Missionary Alliance congregation that leans toward a more blended worship format on Sunday morning, and offers a service on Saturday evening in an informal setting utilizing a single worship leader with an acoustic guitar, though the music selection tends more toward contemporary songs. And though Sunday's service music is blended, the accompaniment is a keyboard, bass guitar, electric guitar and electronic drums, but it's not "loud" or "rocky."

When we first moved here, we lived in a Pittsburgh suburb with plenty of churches, including many that offered worship choices. Last year, we moved to a very small town 18 miles out, where there are just three churches in town. One, an Alliance church, we've visited before because it is the church that owns the school where I work. It's a small church with a blended format, two instruments and a worship team. The other two churches in town are a Bible church, which is doctrinally "fundamentalist" and very traditional, and an EPC-affiliated Presbyterian church with a worship style largely unchanged for about 100 years. There's an ABC-USA congregation about three miles out of town that was basically worship with a pianist and a woman holding a hymnal and singing, and there's another EPC congregation in the rural area that also seems to have held on to a hundred year old worship style. So far, we've continued to drive 18 miles back to the Alliance church we joined when we first moved here. I don't know if that's an option for you, Linda, but I don't think God looks down on you because you have determined that a church down the road is the one that meets your needs.

[Mrs Haruo]

I sympathize with your granddaughter. When we moved away from the city out to the 'burbs, we visited several churches in our neighborhood and a couple I did leave mid service in tears. Walked home shaking like a leaf. The general feeling was "louder is better" and I, being claustrophobic, was sent into a panic attack. I don't do Pentacostal very well, but I wanted to get acquainted with the churches within walking distance. Yes, I am an old geezer, and after a nerve wracking week I look forward to something soothing and on the classical side, fortunately we have that on CD at home, because our church is trying to make the "young folks" more comfortable by doing more contemporary stuff while tossing in one hymn from the book in the pew for the traditionalists still living and breathing.

[Dave Roberts]

One of the real struggles for many is "What brings me to God?" Tim is right to consider options. Larger churches have that possibility. It is important for smaller churches to pick a style that works for them and not just try to imitate what another church is doing. I have worshipped in a controlled contemporary setting where the sound man sat with a sound level meter on top of his enclosure being sure that sound levels were not ear splitting. I've also been in some that seemed to consider more volume the way to make up for quality. Blended often seems to fall flat because either the traditional or contemporary elements seem to have "add on" status that does not fit with the rest of the worship experience. I prefer traditional, even classical, but I don't want that to be the sole determining factor to my worship.

As to Linda's experience, I've found that more liberal churches, just like more conservative ones, tend to gallop on their hobby horses. I no more want to hear a sermon every week on gay rights than I want to hear one on inerrancy. I want to worship with those who are probing scripture so that I encounter the God of the Bible. Sadly, we all need to monitor ourselves to see if we are preaching the whole gospel and not just our special portions.

[Tim Bonney]

Great points Dave about good and bad worship experiences and hobby horses.

The contemporary service I'm creating is very intentionally planned not to try to immitate the big box contemporary church down the street that can but thousands of dollars into a flash/bang service. We are going for a small relaxed and intimate service.

Sandy, while I wish you were right that people create services not just to try to attract people, I've had way too many lay people want me to create a service "to attract young people." The problem with that is that worship should not exist to attract some demographic or other to church. We are supposed to be there to worship and focus on God rather than ourselves. So attractional worship models can fail to actually be worship.

Dave, I actually know of a gay couple that left a church because the pastor preached too much about LGBT issues and the sermons were intended to be supportive of them. But they didn't want to be "someone's issue" they just wanted to worship.

[Sandy]

[linda]

Sandy--thanks for clearing up your stance!

We do have other towns: 90 miles away, where I have no idea what is available. Simply too far for us to go. 50 miles away. No different than here. 25 miles away. One good one, SBC to boot. Unfortunately it is over a major mountain pass. We do worship there a bit, but wouldn't be able to really be part of the church. The road means, at our ages and with our weather and terrain, attending nothing where we would drive the pass after dark. Hard to be a part of things that way. So we've chosen at the moment to be part of an SBC Sunday school most Sunday mornings. Tomorrow the plan is all in SS, then I will be the only die hard trying worship. If it is too loud and harsh no apologies I will simply slip out.

As I said, our church is transitioning away from the louder rock concert, or trying to do so. It is going back to a softer contemporary, and while we don't any of us enjoy that music we can stand it.

The church has faced some interesting conundrums through the years. I'm about to use not little old lady in the pew language but what the younger people I know say. They have tried, since leaving the hymns, basically three formats. The young adults and teens see them as: 1. Southern gospel. (I enjoy it at home.) They call that "honky tonk Christian music, complete with belt buckle polishing seduce them to Jesus songs". 2. Rockier "pep rally for Jesus music." The younger teens are appalled when the praise team moves are only, to their eyes, cleaned up versions of the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. 3. Softer, groaning, breathy praise and worship music. Younger folks call that "come to bed with Jesus" music.

You are right that new believers are often on board with any of these music styles, and are on board with doing all the singing in one block, then the prayers, then the preaching. So we do get new believers plugging into church that way.

But we can't keep them.

Comes a time and they either go to the liberal churches with excellent worship even while telling us they "don't believe a word that preacher says" or they go hyper fundamentalist. Turns out after a time they feel the contemporary music, contemporary format, and third grade reading level translations that seem to go with it, along with non challenging preaching just won't hold them. Only one or two of them that I've known turned KJV only, but several have asked if the pew Bibles and the version read in the service could be one of those written above a 3-5 grade reading level.

All of this has the church, even while waiting for the new preacher to come and provide a fresh take on things, doing some soul searching as to whether or not the changes made about 8 years ago when the church quit using the hymnal, the organ, and seldom using the piano, went to topical preaching that might or might not reference Jesus as that can make seekers skittish, went to this block worship instead of the hymn sandwich. and started using an easy reader version of the Bible was a good idea.

We don't--repeat don't--want to drive people away with a service somehow too high toned for the average person. But we seem to have set the bar so low we are driving away so many if they graduated high school.

And for what it is worth, today's crop of young people seem to be all about those obscure hymns with the big words. The ones in my family are "dones" when it comes to what they see as "don't think just feel" songs.

[Dave Roberts]

Linda, I would love to have you in a congregation I serve. Best I can offer is an internet version. You are welcome to join us, live or after the service on our Livestream feed. Go to , click the worship tab and then the livestream tab. Worship is live at 11 a.m. Eastern time. We would love to have you join us that way.

[linda]

Dave--thanks! Visited the website and it looks good. SS here is your worship hour there, but next blizzard count one more in attendance. Or one more family!

[Sandy]

Interesting that in a discussion thread about people who are leaving the church, we get into a discussion about worship styles. Are the two things related? I think so.

Altogether, surveys and statistical analysis shows that over 200 million Americans claim "church affiliation." Catholics account for about 67 million, Protestants of all varieties (everything from Mainline to Evangelical to Fundamentalist) about 85 million, with the "other" category including Orthodox, and in most surveys, the cults are counted as well. That accounts for about 160 million in the church membership. But the actual numerical strength of Christian churches is much smaller than that. The Catholic church's own estimate is that on any given Sunday, 30% of their members are in attendance, and in the largest Protestant denomination, the SBC, the estimate is about 38-40%. Let's say, for discussion sake, generally half of those who are on church membership rolls attend regularly enough to hit the register once a year or more, then that actually leaves about 65% of the population of America outside of the church, either with no affiliation at all, or with church membership but no participation. That's indication of some kind of a problem, whether its perception, or unmet expectations, or the process through which people are brought into church membership, or communication of the message.

Worship may be part of the problem. At seminary, we were instructed in a theology of worship. They taught a model that was influence by the Protestant tradition, weekly gathering of the body of Christ, use of a scriptural pattern or model that reflected elements used in worship by the early church, and the seeing of God's presence through an environment and atmosphere that is open to welcoming and receiving from the Holy Spirit, including opening the door to spontaneous response if the congregation is moved that way. The idea of a worship service being for "seekers" is not included in Biblical models. That's something that has occurred as worship services, particularly in American culture, have become means to evangelistic outreach, replacing the lifestyle evangelism, one on one, person to person model that is found in scripture, and has been the way the church has reached people since the time of Christ. I can hear my seminary professors asking the question, when it comes to today's seeker services, "How can that be a worship service? How can people worship a God they don't know?." Worship in the context of the church is for bringing believers into the presence of God, and when it becomes other than that, the members of the church are going to have a problem connecting with something they don't need.

[linda]

Sandy

Totally agree we have lost something in worship. Either the service is so seeker sensitive seekers couldn't find God through Christ with a Garmin, or they are beat the sheep services aimed and pointing out if the congregation wasn't so full of losers not being effective evangelists the pastor would be preaching to a full house.

Years ago I read "Christless Christianity" by Horton and it so resonated.
'

[Dave Roberts]

[linda]

Amen, Bro. Dave, Amen.

We've lived here 10 1/2 years. In that time we can tell you of two live sermons focused on Christ. One of those we were out of town travelling

You hit the nail on the head. We aren't willing to give 1 1/2 to 2 hours a week to a service that sings songs we get nothing from and that tell us nothing about Jesus, and then listen to a long sermon on how to do our finances, raise our kids, deal with grandkids, find purpose in retirement, or otherwise help us find mental health.

If it isn't going to be about God, we'll go home and focus on Him here.

Storm coming in, due Sunday. May be with you in worship this week if it arrives early.

[Chris]