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Discovering the Truth About the Empty Pews
Topic Started: Dec 15 2008, 12:37 PM (153 Views)
m_hubbard
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Church is a place that carries the promise of fellowship, acceptance and support. But that's not how one 35-year-old Spokane mother experienced it. The woman, who requested anonymity, says she was raised as a member of a local evangelical church until just before she entered her teens.
And then she quit for what she still sees as a good reason.


"It's a little bit complicated," she said over the phone. "Pretty much most of my childhood I was molested by my father."


Her father, she explains, was well respected by the rest of the congregation.


"When I finally had the guts to tell people what was happening, which was about age 12, he was arrested," the woman said. "And the church took a collection and they bailed him out."


The congregation's actions felt, she says, like an abandonment.


"You know, as a kid I didn't really understand it. But as an adult, as I've gotten older, I just think about that every once in a while and just think, 'Wow,' " she said. "That, to me, was a pretty big betrayal."


While such stories may not be common, statistics show church attendance in America is declining.


And that trend is particularly disturbing to a group of Seventh-day Adventist faithful.


"There were a number of us who were noticing that we lose church members," says Ken Wetmore, 33, who serves as pastor of Seventh-day Adventist congregations in Spangle and Cheney.


"A lot of times it seems like church members come up missing, and we're just really not sure why."


Before looking for a solution, the group wanted to identify the various reasons why members choose to leave their churches. One unique kind of research the group began using Oct. 9 involves a specially painted Spokane Transit Authority bus that asks a specific question, then directs anyone interested to an online survey.


The bus' painted message asks, "Did you used to go to church?" Directly underneath, readers are invited to "Tell me why you quit" by going to a Web site: www.whyiquitchurch.com.


At that address, respondents are faced with a number of questions that range from "Did you grow up in a family that attended church" to "In general, which factor(s) led you to stop attending?"


In addition to ferreting out the various reasons why people quit church, Wetmore says there's a second, more important, feature of the STA campaign: trying to make amends.


"Sometimes as a church we don't do a good enough job loving people and taking care of them," he says. "So we wanted also to be able to let people know that we're sorry for having failed them."


Statistics provided by the Barna Group, a Christian-based research group based in Ventura, Calif., indicate that the declining numbers are real.


According to Barna, between 1991 and 2004, the number of "unchurched" Americans increased by almost 92 percent. Barna defines "unchurched" as an adult, 18 years or older, who has not attended a Christian church service over the previous six months with the exception of holiday service (such as Easter) or a special event (such as a marriage or funeral).


Source: Spokesman-Review
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