#3 – There’s No Natural Bridge to Church
Most teenagers leave home, for college, to travel, work or whatever, after high school. With the bad economy, this number is fewer, but it’s a general trend.
The existing model of church still depends on the assumption that communities are relatively static and that the church is at the center of that community. Not so anymore.
When I went to college, I was contacted by fraternities, campus activity groups and credit card companies but not one church. The only connection I had with religion was the ridiculous guy who (literally) stood on a box with a bullhorn in the union garden and yelled at us about our sinful ways.
I could have used support in how to deal with my own finances for the first time. I could have used a built-in network of friends. I would have loved a care package, an invitation for free pizza at the local restaurant, or help with my laundry. What I got was the goof with the bullhorn.
#4 – We’re Distracted:
I shared a video by Diana Butler Bass in a recent post about a priest who took his Ash Wednesday service out onto the street. When people saw him, they reacted as if they had been shaken out of a deep sleep.
“It’s Ash Wednesday!” they said with surprise as they asked for the ashes. “Lent is starting!” It simply wasn’t on their radar.
It’s not that we don’t care; we have so many things competing for our limited time and attention that the passive things that don’t offer an immediate “interrupt” get relegated to the “later” pile. And we rarely ever get to the “later” pile, which leads me to the next point…
