Empty Pews: Understanding Why People Are Walking Away From The Church

By Ken Kapreilian

New revised for 2020 including Biblical references for anyone who collects money for the work of God. We live in a world that is being torn apart by money. Scripture tells us this will occur.

"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. (Matthew 6:24)

Then by extension, we have to realize this is also happening in the church. Now when I say, “the church”, I'm not talking about any specific local church, I am speaking about the earthly churches in broad terms. When we seek an answer as to why this is occurring, we need only to reference the Bible for the answer.

I will explore the topic of declining church attendance (empty pews) from three perspective. These perspective are (spiritual, internal and external).

After you have read this book, you will then have a clear understanding on why people are leaving the church.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9780359731701

Book preview

Empty Pews: Understanding Why People Are Walking Away From The Church

Empty Pews: Understanding Why People Are Walking Away From the Church

Ken Kapreilian

Copyright by Kapreilian Publishing 2020, all rights reserved

ISBN: 978-0-359-73170-1

Introduction

We live in a world that is being torn apart by money. Scripture tells us this will occur.

"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. (Matthew 6:24)

Then by extension, we have to realize this is also happening in the church. Now when I say, the church, I'm not talking about any specific local church, I am speaking about the earthly churches in broad terms. When we seek an answer as to why this is occurring, we need only to reference the Bible for the answer.

¹² For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of [a]the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12, NKJV)

I will explore the topic of declining church attendance (empty pews) from three perspectives. These perspectives are (spiritual, internal and external). The spiritual perspective as shown in,  Ephesians 6:12, is at the root of all three perspectives; and it is easy to understand why; 

manwalking2

Walk in Light

⁸ For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light ⁹ (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), ¹⁰ finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. ¹¹ And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. ¹² For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. ¹³ But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light[1]

People are walking away from the church into the light

Clergy Stories

Remember the story about the Wizard of Oz[2]. It is a wonderful story about a teenage girl (Dorothy) who was taken into a strange land (Oz) by a twister. Then, Dorothy was told that if she wanted to get back home, she had to go and see the Great and powerful Wizard of Oz. When Dorothy finally meets the wizard, it is revealed that he (the wizard) is just a fake image controlled by a little old man pulling the levers behind curtain. This image of a man with seemingly amazing powers is used by many clergy to tell their stories (which have nothing to do with the truth of scripture). But when you understand they become (the little man behind the curtain who's pulling the levers) and you learned there is no such thing as a wizard thus he has been exposed for the fraud he was.

Many clergy are tantalizing storytellers, as they mix facts with fiction, grab our emotion and tell things, they want us to believe. Their factoids are unremittingly reiterated, take a life on their own and in the end become the very truth… until the bubble bursts. Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all His laws... If we should perish, the primary cause would be that the strength of a giant nation was directed by eyes too blind to see all the hazards of the struggle; and the blindness would be induced, not by some accident of nature or history, but by hatred and vainglory." ― Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History

Whoever is honest in small things can also be trusted with great ones, and whoever is dishonest in little matters will also be dishonest with much. So if a man has not been honest with worldly wealth, who can trust him with moral decisions? No man can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon.' The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and sneered at Jesus." (Luke 16:10-14)

³ Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. ⁴ They will say, Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation. ⁵ But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. ⁶ By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.⁷ By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the Day of Judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

¹⁷ Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position. ¹⁸ But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen. (2 Peter 3:3-7, 17-18)

Our Society Has Changed and This Is Our New Normal

people before 1a

Today hardly anybody remembers the story about the Wizard of Oz.  This is because many people who are leading a high tech lifestyle (e.g. those living and working in Silicon Valley) are embracing the new paradigm, their collective mantra is, "Out with the old and in with the new

There have been many books written on this theme (complexity, realities of modern living).

Anderson (1990) found the following:

It is a world coming together the global civilization, the first that has ever existed, emerging into being before our very eyes -- but one that seems to be, at the same time in the process of falling apart.  It is doing neither, and both; it is becoming a system that is not organized according to believe, as we once knew it). Reality Isn’t What It Used To Be (p. 232).

This previous quote from Anderson is a composite of how many people from this second culture see computers, the Internet and all the technological advances that now makeup our world.

I view this in comparison to the different paradigm shifts that have occurred over the past hundred years or so.  In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s this country