Why don’t people go to church anymore?
Wouldn’t I like a dollar for that question being asked at the moment? Even better would be the solution to the trend of dwindling church attendance. In my anecdotal observations of church life in Brisbane there is a disturbing trend of not just dwindling church attendance but regular church attendees are actually attending less services each month.
Currently people who would call themselves regular church attendees are now currently attending twice a month and that is trending down to once a month. That is a disturbing trend that creates a whole lot of problems for church ministers. Why it is that even our loyal people are now becoming infrequent when attending church. Is it a reflection of their personal faith commitment? Is it because church is boring, or are people becoming busier?
Personally I don’t think it is the first answer. I think people are just as committed to Jesus as ever. I think it is a bit of reasons two and three. However I am beginning to think it is more about the way people interact and consume their ‘entertainment’ or information.
Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s people would make a point of being home in time to see a particular TV show. In the morning we would tune into our favourite radio station to hear a particular show that would happen in breakfast at the same time each day. We would go and see a movie at the cinema on Saturday nights or even Saturday afternoon because that was the only time it was on.
Then something happened.
In the late 80’s early 90’s the VCR started arriving in people’s homes. Suddenly people could tape the news, TV show and watch when it suited them. Instead of going to the movies people could hire the movie from the video shop and watch at home when it suited the consumer. Suddenly we started seeing the death of appointment viewing as people now had the opportunity of missing it ‘live’ and still being able to watch or listen to it later.
Even now we see TV stations showing some of their shows on their website, radio stations podcast their programs so people who missed what happened earlier can now listen at a time that suits them.
Where does this leave the church? We are still stuck in the model that church is on at 9am Sunday; come along then or miss out for another week. Why are we surprised that more and more people are missing out. We are conditioned to get our information/entertainment on line via podcasts, iview, online newspapers or even via DVDs. Churches still exist in the old model of expecting them to come when the Senior Minister thinks it is the best time to have Church. Often it is the best time in his frame of reference not necessarily the best time for his congregation or for that matter the community of unbelievers. They are living in the model of a consumer who consumes at a time that suits them not that of the content provider.
So what is the solution? That is the million dollar question. I wonder if the answer to dwindling church attendance lies in not upping the ante of making church services more attractive rather in creating more opportunities for people to attend church. By pod casting the service they know they can skip church because they will hear the sermon on line and certainly they can sing the songs on their ipod or CD player too. But in missing church they miss the opportunity of human connection in their faith journey. But if they can’t make Sunday we need to give them other opportunities for this connection. Maybe those opportunities are Saturday night, Wednesday morning, and Tuesday evening.
Most churches have their own building lying idle Monday to Saturday. Let’s think about using them outside of Sunday. Retailers along time ago learnt the lesson of 7 day week trading. They don’t expect people to consume every day but at least once that week and at a time that suits them the consumer. Church trades once a week and expects everyone to drop everything to attend then.
I know there are other issues that contribute to dwindling church attendance like perceived relevancy of church. But as I talk to more and more people who are unchurched I find that many of them believe there is a God and see church attendance as not important to their life.
Keen to hear your thoughts.
Thanks for the great blog post and the million dollar question. I do agree about many churches being idle during the week, what a waste. All that said, there is something truly authentic about worshiping with others, which I would find hard in front of a screen. The time shifting of society is breaking community and we don't know what to do yet. BTW Back to Church Sunday is back again this year, in just a few weeks- Sept 12th. More Anglican Churches are involved this year which is great news.
ReplyDeleteWhen we were staying at the Snowy Mountains for the ski season some years ago, the church had their services on a weeknight (mind you that was in the days before night skiing!) because they knew nobody would come to a Sunday morning service - they were either skiing, or working!
ReplyDeleteNowadays I hear Hillsong Brisbane has a Friday night service though I've never been.
Some interesting thoughts hear Billy ... although you didn't touch on hurts and offense being a major reason many Christians aren't going to church regularly ... but then that would be a very very very long blog post LOL!
You are right, Billy, in that it is a really complicated question. Here is some food for thought though...
ReplyDeleteWe are among those Christians who don't attend as often as we would like on a Sunday. That is partly due to the reality of living IN a secular world which no longer views Sunday as a day which should be set aside for spiritual endeavours. One of our teens works in retail on a Sunday, and another plays sport. Both are committed to their faith, but work their church attendance around other commitments. With so many Christians (and non-Christians) working weekends, it is easy for church to become another thing to be squeezed into a packed schedule...
That being said, perhaps the answer to dwindling church attendance lies in the same paradigm as team sport. Team sports still gets their participants to turn up at the arbitrarily designated time and place. If we could get our attendees engaged as active participants in the church service, whose attendance was vital to church's success, I suspect we would get a higher turn-out. Perhaps the way we "do" church is what is actually driving people away?
Thanks for the feedback. Some good thoughts there. I agree their are a group of disanfranchised people out there who wouldn't go back to church on any day. I believe the average Aussie is interested in God and does want to belong to something bigger than themselves. It's worth trying multiple services on other days of the week. And it doesn't have to be the minister running the service. Lets empower the body to be shepherds of sheep.
ReplyDeleteAmen to that Billy!!!
ReplyDeleteery good blog and quite well written.
ReplyDeleteI think there's a range of reasons why people do not attend church anymore, and those who do, rock up to fewer services.
Interestingly however, I doubt the VCR has anything to do with it. Funnily enough, it was during the time when VCRs started to proliferate that Brisbane started to see to growth of its mega-churches: namely, Reg Kliminok's and Clark Taylor's. If there has been a decline in a particular congregation's attendance, I doubt that time-shifting has anything to do with it. Indeed, time-shifting should theoretically allow greater freedom for people to allocate more time to God and fellowship.
If the so-called million dollar question is 'what is the solution?' then the answer to this question for a Minister whose service attendance numbers are falling will not be found in analysing 'what are we doing wrong?'. The solution should be found in asking- 'what are the growing churches doing right?'.
Empirical evidence to be released next year will show there are many churches in Brisbane that have undergone tremendous growth since the last quantitative research. For example: BCC, Hillsong, Citipointe, C3 and ICC.
While Billy's point about multiple services during the week is a good one, one decent spirit-filled service a week is still better than 10 boring ones.
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