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Monday, February 25, 2008
What’s the deal with these Church hoppers?
Well what do you know- the Pew Institute recently found out what local Pastors figured out a long time ago-there is no such thing as church loyalty anymore. “Church hoppers” and “Spiritual Lone Rangers” are terms used by local clergy to describe Christians who move from church to church without any spiritual covering. The Pew’s 35,000 person poll labeled: “The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey,” found that 28% of American adults have left the faith of their childhood for another one. And if you include those who move from one Protestant denomination to another, that figure would jump up to 44%!
On the surface this may seem like a loyalty issue, but one must look deeper to find out the real reason for all this church movement. Various reasons such as marriage, disappointment and hurtful experiences with the local churches, and people looking for the perfect church, lead people to church hop. Others simply don’t desire to experience true faith community because they don’t like the accountability to grow in knowledge and understanding of the requirements of being a follower of Christ. They wish to stay attendee’s instead of moving on to contributors.
My personal belief is that many today are just fed up with “Religion” because they now realize that Religion is just an empty experience that never leads to the abundant life promised us by scripture. True lifestyle change can only occur when one experiences a true personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus himself condemned the religious community by calling them clean on the outside while being filthy on the inside. God created us with an innate craving to know our creator. The problem with Religion is that it will never fill the craving to “know God” because it only allows us to know “about God”.
So, any bloggers out there church hopping right now? What excuses have you heard for people moving from denomination to denomination? Has anyone out there given up on church membership? Why?
