Will “Going Digital” Help The Denominations?

     I read an article this week that said the Christian denominations are starting to encourage their members to tweet, text, email, and surf the Internet during worship services.[1.  News & Record (Greensboro, NC), June 29, 2014, A4.]  The article said that one pastor announces from his pulpit at the start of each service, “Feel free to text or tweet during the service.”

     When asked why he does this, the pastor said that people outside of his congregation might think his members “are pretty cool people,” and might not realize they’re “church” people.  Thus, the pastor said, if his “cool members” use their digital devices during services, it’ll let outsiders know that they’re in a Christian worship service, and that might in turn attract some of those outsiders to join his congregation.

     This, of course, is fuzzy and illogical thinking.  “Going digital” during services simply adds another distraction to worship services that are already too boring, hypocritical, and irrelevant, according to national polls.  So the first question is:  What’s causing pastors to engage in this kind of fuzzy thinking?

     The truth is that today’s Christian denominations are in steep decline.  Only about 16 percent of the population still attends regularly, and that percentage is decreasing annually.  So in a desperate effort to stop the bleeding, priests and pastors are willing to try almost anything – and are willing to allow almost anything – in their battle to retain members.

     The second question is:  Will this new “tolerance” of anything and everything stop the decline in attendance?  And the answer is:  Probably not.  It’ll probably make things worse.  Why?  Because national polls show that many Christians already think worship services are too long, too boring, too irrelevant, and too hypocritical.  That’s why people are leaving the denominations instead of joining them.

     Summary:  The future looks grim for the denominations.  But it doesn’t look grim for Christians who want to have the same peace, healing, hope, and purpose that the original Christians enjoyed.  We need to remember that the original Christians met informally in small groups in private homes, and their meetings were guided directly by the Holy Spirit.  That’s what gave them such amazing Spiritual power that it changed world history in only 70 years.

     That same Spiritual power is still available today.  But it’s only available if Christians get back to the basics of the Early Christian Lifestyle.  That’s what the “True Stories” and “Ask Owen” pages of this blog are all about; as well as my book, Saving Christianity; and the episodes of our “Saving Christianity” podcast.  (See links to these resources in the side menu on this page.)  They reveal how the Early Christian Lifestyle can still be lived today, and we pray the resources are succeeding and that our followers are reaping the supernatural rewards.