Bringing the young back to the church


prisonchaplain
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4 hours ago, Fether said:

 

@prisonchaplain

We definitely want answers haha. Many of us do believe that answer can be relative to the person (I dont subscribe to that thinking :P ). In religion, the scriptures just don’t make sense. I was blessed with the ability to be blindly obedient for a long time, the seminary teacher I mentioned above broke me out of that and relieved a lot of stress I had and all of a sudden church became exciting. I learned that the lessons learned in class were not bound by the teachers intentions, I learned how to search out my questions and I found the real boundaries of “it doesn’t matter” or “just have faith” and realized that even though they were there, it was ok to search beyond that. I’m doing so I would learn profound lessons about God, even if I never answered the question I originally sought. 

Now I want to be clear on that I don’t teach or even believe the ideas I come up with to rationalize my hard questions that I can’t find CLEAR prophetic backing for.

I hate anti-intellectualism within the church. Further, yes, Pentecostals have sometimes been the worst culprits. When my church started a seminary in the 1970s many prayed for its demise. Why rely on "the wisdom of men," they cried. Too many young people have had sincere questions treated like disbelief/criticism/smart alekism. Big picture though:  Christianity has done more to spread literacy and education than skeptics ever could.

As an aside, it's my perception that liberalism is going through it's intolerant dark ages right now. We just saw a super-progressive biology professor at Evergreen State College forced to resign because he would not support a day of White-absence at the school. This guy would probably make former President Obama look like a Republican, but because he transgressed on this one issue he was labeled a multi-phobic traitor. The 18-year-old intellectuals even accused him of using his Jewishness as a cover for his multiple hate crimes. So, if it's free and open inquiry you seek, today you'll need to reside in the conservative tent.

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1 hour ago, DoctorLemon said:

My opinion is that such a decline is very much the negative effects of no-lordship salvation.

 

You are spot-on. However, too many leaders believe the opposite--they actually believe the younger want the vapid, success-today, no-standards swill being dished out that the "God's Looking for a Friend" clubs.  Those grow quick, but I suspect they'll die quick too.  The golf course is always more attractive than a church, if it's all about me.

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21 hours ago, prisonchaplain said:

So, let us win the young back to our churches—not through marketing, or through abandoning our core beliefs and practices for the post-modern relativism of society—but by doubling down on what we do right. Let’s pray, read our Bibles, and live with an out-loud goodness—the kind we learned as kids.

 

Let’s get on our knees and pray. Before John Wesley went into a town to preach he sent his partner ahead of him to gather a group of like minded people who would pray for his efforts. He credits his success as an evangelist to these prayer warriors. 

Let us live our lives worthy of our callings. I did not become a Christian because of “persuasive” doctrine I became one because I saw Christ in the lives of those I knew in the church. 

Let us be consistent in our prayers and our lives and in supporting those who are directly involved in day to day mission activities. 

Finally let us drop this nonsense about how unfair the world is and how tough it is to witness to others. Christ warned us that he was sending us out as sheep among wolves.  We weren’t called to protest against violations of our rights. We were called to turn the other cheek. 

As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. John 9:4

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18 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

I am a bit surprised that church is not becoming more important to people as families become less of an anchor.

I'm not.  Church culture (at least in Utah) and teachings are very much (in-your-face) family-oriented.  It would be natural for this to appeal to families (or people who feel a strong desire to have a family).  But for those who don't feel that strong desire and/or don't have (or feel connected to) a family, I can see how they might struggle to feel connected with members who do, or to feel like they belong in the Church (regardless of the eternal perspective).  I don't know if the problem is exclusive to high-density Zion, or to women therein, but I know that for women, it's a pretty common issue that married women associate with other married women, and mothers associate with other mothers, which leaves single women feeling very disconnected from other ward members.  (Of course, I've also heard of this happening in non-LDS circles as well, so I'm thinking it's a natural thing, not (just) a Mormon thing.)

I comprehend the efficiency and convenience of the wife-wife and mother-mother preferences - makes perfect sense.  I also comprehend couples wanting to socialize with other couples (rather than having a third wheel along, as it were) - equally logical.  So I can't find any fault in it.  But it does present a problem when trying to get all the ward members to feel connected / united (and statistics show that this is a problem - activity is highest for families, then for couples, and lowest for singles).

I also think (and I can say this since I'm single) that those who remain single past their Mormon expiry date (sometimes?) have to share part of the blame - there's a reason they're single.  It could well be that their personalities are such that people don't like them enough to make an exception to the efficiency / convenience rule of limiting close associations to those who provide the most benefit (by sharing similar circumstances).

All that may make some people uncomfortable, but this is a problem, it's not going to get solved by denying the realities of it.  Personally, I don't think it's gonna get solved before the resurrection, and then, it'll only sorta get solved (it'll also get set in stone).

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@zil.

Yes! We tend to live in silos. In low density lds ville, this is less of a trend because there are fewer people to clump with. I often wonder why we have so many activities! We have one a week! The activity people must be exhausted. The more we lack in numbers the more activities we stage. I had to tell my Relief Society pres very firmly no activities. I work a 6 day week.

I think for some people, church replaces family to some extent. Some lds people have expressed surprise that my family, siblings, are so central to my life. I think for some lds people they are less involved with adult siblings because the church both takes up time that they could spend with adult siblings and gives an instant community. 

I have met gay people and immigrants who are very vocal that they are constructing their own extended families and I sometimes wonder, and, have to bite my tongue not to say, so why not a church? In fact a lot of immigrants that I know dump the faith of their fathers and substitute a charity staffed by members of their culture. 

Edited by Sunday21
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2 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

@zil. I think for some people, church replaces family to some extent. Some lds people have expressed surprise that my family, siblings, are so central to my life. I think for some lds people they are less involved with adult siblings because the church both takes up time that they could spend with adult siblings and gives an instant community. 

I have met gay people and immigrants who are very vocal that they are constructing their own extended families and I sometimes wonder, and, have to bite my tongue not to say, so why not a church? In fact a lot of immigrants that I know dump the faith of their fathers and substitute a charity staffed by members of their culture. 

It seems probable that there are very different demographics in the Church where you are versus where I am.

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2 minutes ago, zil said:

It seems probable that there are very different demographics in the Church where you are versus where I am.

Yes. Also Canadians are more secular. Outside of me, hardly anyone in my neighbourhood attends church! Someone asked me why I was so dressed up on a Sunday and gave a horrible scowl when I said ‘church’ and lots of recent immigrants, who frequently dump religion (maybe they hated it at home and only went for aunt Martha?) in favor of an ethnically themed charity.

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Guest MormonGator
18 hours ago, prisonchaplain said:

Fair enough, and of course. The current generation is always being asked why they are doing a variety of things, including leaving church. And, to be more direct, it's not the leaving that's unusual. There has always been a period, roughly 18-25, when young people head off for higher learning, and must make their faith along (... or not). Most return when they have children, realizing that the eternal things really do matter. It's only been in the last 20 years or so that young families are not returning to the church in the same numbers. They've been polled, queried, interviewed, and asked 1:1. Books have been written, reports given, and, at this stage, it's like the joke about statistics:  figures lie and liars figure. In other words, we that argue for a return to righteous living and the pillars of church living that have been mainstay for millennia can certainly round up plenty of youth who will say, "It's about time!" Those that argue for liberalizing church standards, becoming more 'relevant,' etc. will have their cadre of supporters among the young, etc.

I don't argue against the conversation, but might I suggest that part of the problem is that this generation that we are so eager to see return has been made to feel important--self-important. They've been told that we elders don't know what we're doing, and have failed them. We're behind, irrelevant, racist/sexist/homophobic, and too many of us voted for Trump. So, come back to the church and save us. Some of the 20-30-something writings on this subject reek with such incredible arrogance. One almost-40-year-old pastor literally called for his elders to admit their irrelevance and ineffectiveness, and step down from leadership--and get real jobs. That's not wisdom, that's an ungodly disrespect--but sadly one he's been taught to embrace as authenticity.

 Great points @prisonchaplain, and I'm sure it must be tough to be lectured to by some young punk like me.

Just for the record, I'm not saying that churches have to change any teachings, any beliefs, or anything of that matter. 

I think when someone leaves a church, we make things up as to why as a defensive mechanism or flat out pride. After all, we surely know more about their motives than they do. Everyone loves to preach humility, but when the questions get uncomfortable or they make us nervous or anything like that, humility goes out the door. Maybe young people leave the church (again, talking about all churches from LDS to Assembly of God to Catholic to Universalist to you get my drift) for what we think are invalid or shallow reasons, but the reality is we don't know unless we ask. 

 

12 hours ago, Sunday21 said:

. Some lds people have expressed surprise that my family, siblings, are so central to my life. 

 

Same here, but replace "family/siblings" for friends. When I try to tell members that no, my atheist/agnostic/non thiest friends aren't interested in joining the church and yes, they are very important to me and I will hang out with them, I've gotten blank stares. One guy expressed total shock that I'd be so close with non members. Yes, I know he was an exception but it's still weird. 

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1 hour ago, MormonGator said:

I think when someone leaves a church, we make things up as to why as a defensive mechanism or flat out pride. After all, we surely know more about their motives than they do. Everyone loves to preach humility, but when the questions get uncomfortable or they make us nervous or anything like that, humility goes out the door. Maybe young people leave the church (again, talking about all churches from LDS to Assembly of God to Catholic to Universalist to you get my drift) for what we think are invalid or shallow reasons, but the reality is we don't know unless we ask. 

 

I can't speak for AoG, but for LDS, one of the challenges with directly asking is that we don't always get the real answer. For instance, Elder Andersen shares why some people left the Church back in the 80's:

Quote

Years ago I read a Time magazine article that reported the discovery of a letter, supposedly written by Martin Harris, that conflicted with Joseph Smith’s account of finding the Book of Mormon plates.

A few members left the Church because of the document.

Sadly, they left too quickly. Months later experts discovered (and the forger confessed) that the letter was a complete deception.

Did they come back once the forgery was discovered? I mean, that was the reason they left, right? @Carborendum has shared his experience with a friend (family member?) who left and will give you one explanation, but there's something else going on there.

Don't get me wrong, there's value in asking them directly. And I think if we took a poll today of everyone leaving the LDS church, we'd hear a lot about the problems with Church history since that's the favorite pinata of late. I suspect the best thing would probably be to keep all the other answers and then go in and do the legwork for the ones that reply with Church history issues to see if something more is going on there (and by legwork I mean go in and interview those that know them).

For other churches, something similar might be useful, except they might not have a punching bag like we do. In that case, they may need to follow up with local clergy and friends to get a fuller picture and gauge the overall accuracy of their survey.

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1 minute ago, Vort said:

How open-minded and tolerant of them.

Canadians are quite secular. Also in Quebec the Catholic church sometimes did not treat parishioners very well years ago. My mother went to ask a priest for some advice and he dramatically banned her from the church in front of witnesses. She never went back.

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Guest MormonGator
27 minutes ago, mordorbund said:

Don't get me wrong, there's value in asking them directly. And I think if we took a poll today of everyone leaving the LDS church, we'd hear a lot about the problems with Church history since that's the favorite pinata of late. I suspect the best thing would probably be to keep all the other answers and then go in and do the legwork for the ones that reply with Church history issues to see if something more is going on there (and by legwork I mean go in and interview those that know them).

 

We agree totally. 100%. 

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5 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:
9 minutes ago, Vort said:
15 hours ago, Sunday21 said:

Someone asked me why I was so dressed up on a Sunday and gave a horrible scowl when I said ‘church’

How open-minded and tolerant of them.

Canadians are quite secular. Also in Quebec the Catholic church sometimes did not treat parishioners very well years ago. My mother went to ask a priest for some advice and he dramatically banned her from the church in front of witnesses. She never went back.

I'm thinking each time someone asks you why you're all dressed up you should give them different answers to see how they respond:

  • Cult
  • Off to renew my covenants
  • BoM (pronounced "bomb") Study Group
  • Hanging with my sisters (possibly pronounced "sistas", but that will probably get you in serious trouble)
  • 3 fun-filled hours of hellfire and damnation (said with a smile and a happy primary president voice)
  • [deleted]  (OK, that might be a bit sacrilegious there)
  • [deleted] (nope, can't say that either)
  • Off to listen to motivational speakers inspiring me to be a better person!  Wanna come?
  • (looking down at self) This is all dressed up?
  • Preparing for my death (or funeral, whichever - maybe try both)
  • [your answer here]
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