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Don't Give Up on the Church; Wrestling With Cynicism
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The recent death of Pope Francis and the process to select a successor captures the headlines across the world as “The Vatican” iconically represents what many less vigorous believers think of as “The Church”
My guest, Dr Timothy West, works full-time as a Senior Ministry Consultant for NL Moore & Associates, a firm dedicated to guiding churches through senior leadership transitions, particularly the placement of lead pastors. Prior to this role Tim served in multiple roles as lead or founding pastor himself and also did a stint “down under” in Australia as a missionary and church planter.
In this episode we discuss what we both feel is an extremely important problem and urge every listener out there “Don’t Give Up on the Church!” the title of this episode.
Every serious discussion begins with a problem definition or statement. Ours is from a recent article published by BARNA titled “Men Are Not Villians: Winning the Church Back to Men”
Here's an excerpt outlining the situation demographically:
40,000,000 Americans have stopped going to church in the past 25 years. We are experiencing what is being called the Great Dechurching, the largest concentrated change in church attendance since the end of the Civil War. In 1937, when Gallup began measuring church affiliation, 73% of Americans belonged to a house of worship. Today, it is less than 47%, the first time in history that the majority of Americans do not belong to a church.
The Hartford Institute for Religion recently noted that the median sized Evangelical church in America had 137 people attending in 2000. By 2021, that number had shrunk to 65. What’s worse—on any given Sunday, those 65 people are largely made up of women. Men, in large scale have abandoned the Church. Today, more than ever, men are missing from the Church.
If you're interested in hearing more about the current state and what Tim and I believe might be great remedies to improve these figures, particularly among men, give it a listen!
Visit www.thesavagepath.com for more on David, his book The Savage Path: A Memoir of Modern Masculinity, and the Savage Path Ministries Corp.
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