Church Attendance – Hypocrisy or Love? Recently I happened to note a person’s comments on their Facebook page about the subject of “Church Attendance”…I happened to notice the comments as this person was a member of one of the many groups that I normally and routinely make postings in connection with Alzheimer’s, Care-giving and June’s website…occasionally references will take me to a person’s page. This person for some reason apparently felt it necessary to explain their lack of church attendance on Sunday…not that anyone had asked them, but for personal reasons this person seemed to feel the need to tell the world about it… The person then told a story of their last attendance at a small local church in their area…the person said they would not return to this church…the reasoning was centered about what the person had determined to be the hypocrisy of the members of this church…the person then mentioned seeing hypocrites to the right, hypocrites to the left and hypocrites to the front…all apparently trying to show the world how great they were for attending church on Sunday morning…no indication or explanation of how the person had determined the church was full of hypocrites…this person had by their comments, managed to impugn the character and morals of much of this church while the person apparently found them self to be the a person without fault… While these remarks made me very angry, I did not allow myself the luxury of making a comment to the contrary on the page…after all it was this person’s page where they could promote themselves or appear as wise or as ignorant as they wanted…the readers could be the judge…their priorities were their own…I felt sorry for this person in that by their ignorance or otherwise they were missing out on so much in their life. I then played a mind game of my own…I thought of the people my own church, the Redeemer Lutheran Church…I visualized those that would normally sat to the right of me, to the left of me and in front of me…I honestly do not think that any of them could be labeled hypocrites…while I am sure that every church has some hypocrites among the members, I really doubt that they exceed the average of the general public and would think that just the reverse is the case... Why do I attend church regularly every Sunday?…I attend for several reasons…and perhaps the prime reason is not the right reason…The Bible tells us to “Honor the Sabbath Day and Keep it Holy”…while that is certainly one of my reasons, I also have many other reasons…maybe that makes me a hypocrite…my other reasons are…that: most of my friends are there and I enjoy associating with them on Sunday and during Tuesday Bible Study and during Thursday Grief Share and other church functions…I look forward to talking with them at the coffee hour following church…also the association following the Bible Study…and because of June…this was her church and she loved it with all of her heart…every time I am there I think of June and see her in various places about the church in my “minds eye”…It always gives me a feeling of comfort and peace that I find no where else…this is one of places that my normal loneliness is never present… The Benedictine Holy Spirit Chapel that I visit once a week has a relaxing lobby area outside the Chapel that I frequently have coffee and read some of the publications on the side table. While the Benedictine is a Catholic run organization they practice an ecumenical posture and have a mixture of both Catholic and Protestant publications on the table...I enjoy the Catholic publications as much as the Protestant ones. A short time ago I read in the March 2013 issue of the US Catholic magazine a survey on Church attendance…It was based on a survey by the Georgetown Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate …”How do Americans Spend Their Sundays? They compared years 1950 to 2012 to determine the Parish involvement then and now. They found that only 3 percent of the Parish was “Very Involved” both in 1950 and 2012. Those who attended weekly or monthly Mass were 46% in 1950 but had dropped to only to 34% in 2012. Those who attended Mass only 1-2 times a year were 12% in 1950 but had increased slightly to 15% in 2012. (Apparently a few of those lost in the above 46% had migrated to the 1-2 times yearly.) In 1950, only 39% of the Catholics were rated as “Inactive/Non-Practicing” Catholics. This number had increased to a depressing 48% in 2012. This very interesting article also analyzed Church attendance by generations. The GI/Silent Generation had the best attendance record slipping only slightly between 2003 (39%) and 2011 (38%). (Those born between 1925 and 1942.) The Baby Boomers were next with 2003 (29%) and 2011 (31%) (Those who were born late 1950’s) Their attendance slightly improved over the decade. The Generation X started the year 2003 with 24% and improved to 26% in 2011. The Millennials started the year 2003 with 18% and improved to 24% in 2011. A Bar Graphs study also indicated how the average Sunday was spent in the various activities by the age groups…Sleeping occupied about 38 to 43% of the time by different age groups, Television time was approx 12 to 18% of the day, work took up about 2 to 7% of the day and Worship only about 2-3 percent of the day. In the Bar Graphs above, I was happy to see that the “Old Geezers” had the best attendance record. The “Old Geezers” also looked the best in how they spent their day…in the percent of the day spent in activities, they slept the least amount of the day, worked the least amount of the day and worshiped the greatest amount of the day. I would assume that the Protestant’s scene would follow a similar path or pattern to that shown for the Catholics in the studies.
Posted on: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 02:18:16 +0000
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