Near Miss Worship October 6, 2009
Posted by Dan R. Dick in Church Leadership, worship.Tags: Christian worship, Church Leadership, worship
11 comments
No one sets out to offer vacuous, insipid, superficial, or self-absorbed worship. Pastors and lay leaders both dedicate themselves to creating meaningful, spiritual and authentic worship experiences. Yet, at a gathering of 21-29 year olds who have “given up on church” that took place in 2007 , these were the top four reasons given why they didn’t like worship in The United Methodist Church. Forty-one young people agreed to attend four different churches for a month in Atlanta, Houston, Denver, and southern California. They filled out survey forms sharing their thoughts. Out of 158 responses, 13 were positive, 29 were neutral, and 116 were negative. All the participants were twenty-somethings who had left the church within the past five years, but who still consider themselves committed Christians. Selections were made at random with the help of researchers in the four geographic areas. (This was one part of the larger Spiritual Seeker study begun while I worked for the General Board of Discipleship).
