If the report put out by CUNY ( City University of New York) after
interviewing 50,000 Americans is correct, the LCMS should brace itself for
major losses in the coming years.
For the past 10 years, the LCMS Council of District Presidents (COP) and
the Lutheran Church Extension Fund have been promoting the Church Growth
Movement, Leadership Training, PLI, and contemporary worship. These fads have
proven to be a statistical failure. Why?
The goal was to have the LCMS grow by replacing hardcore worship with
entertainment and voters' assemblies with pastoral leadership. Now that
thousands of LCMS congregations have joined in this "exciting new
direction," the results are proving to be a complete and utter disaster.
These self-styled LCMS administrative innovators applauded by "Jesus
First," should not be allowed to retire with honor for the destruction
they have brought on the LCMS.
Anyone with even a partial understanding of marketing will recognize that
the CUNY Report shows that rather than bring more people into the church,
contemporary worship and Church Growth have proven to be the final step before
people exit Christianity entirely.
The following information was received from:
TRADITIONAL VALUES COALITION
TVC NEWS
Vol. 5, Issue 2, January 12, 2002
http://www.traditionalvalues.org
Article titled: "Unchurched Population Increasing in U.S.; Christians
Decrease"
"The America Religious Identification Survey, 2001, released by the
Graduate Center of the City University of New York indicates that there is a
'wide and possibly growing swath of secularism' in the United States. In
addition, it appears that the numbers of self-identified Christians has
decreased from 86% in 1990 to 77% today.'"
For additional details on this, go to:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/100/33.0.html.
The Christianity Today article reports: "The groups making the largest
gains since 1990 included Evangelical Christians, non-denominational
Christians and those who professed no religion. The latter group accounted for
the largest single increase since the previous, 1990 study. 'One of the most
striking 1990-2001 comparisons is the more than doubling of the adult
population identifying with no religion, from 14.3 million (8 percent) in 1990
to the current 29.4 million (14.1 percent),' the study said."
The CUNY Report shows that contemporary worship and non-denominational
churches are a self-extinguishing movement.
The COP has been encouraging members of the LCMS to get involved in
congregations that teach less and know less. They are in effect, teaching
people to give up Christianity.
Once they leave their "contemporary" congregations, rather than
return to more traditional congregations with traditional doctrine and
practice, people are simply dropping out of Christianity. Why not? They were
never taught why they were there and they only expected to be entertained.
The COP has promoted Church Growth as the exit strategy for people leaving
the LCMS and the demise of its own church body. At this writing, the 10 LCMS
teachers' colleges only have a total of 9 students planning to be church
organists. What happened to scholarships and promotion of traditional church
music? The COP's plan is to phase out traditional worship and the LCMS with
it.
Many of the COP were schooled by Seminex professors and Seminex
sympathizers. They were never taught to appreciate Christianity, and it shows.
Their plan is to promote contemporary worship and make traditional worship
obsolete in the LCMS.
The COP will not accept a basic principal of marketing: When you don't
educate your customer, you lose your customer.