Why aren't people coming to church?

I learned a new acronym this week...’BCS’...but more on that later.

I have written before about falling asleep in church….

The Pastor was in fine form….he was onto point 14 of his sermon on something or other and had just passed the 60 minute mark. He was surprised, on embarking on point 15 to see a man in the second row asleep and was deeply affronted. The Reverend kindly requested the man next to him to wake him up to receive the following reply…”You put him to sleep….why don’t you come down and wake him up yourself.”

I know that going to church is important…the writer to the Hebrews encourages us;

‘Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing’ (Hebrews 10:25)

But sometimes I wonder whether ‘I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good.’ (1 Corinthians 11:17) may be closer to the mark.

It is my solemn belief that church should be the most exciting place we go each week. We should leave feeling encouraged, a little smarter and a little closer to God and our fellow travellers. How often though do we stuff it up and bore people so much they want to stay home? Are people enduring an unpleasant experience coming to church?

My Dad is involved in prison ministry. The team has watched and wondered why the church service in one wing of the prison had dwindled down over a period of weeks to an all-time low of 2 loyal attendees.

They finally spoke with the Governor of the prison to see if there was any obvious reason….It turns out that apparently some of the prisoners had been using church as a new place to exchange contraband and a new rule had been implemented.

It is little wonder that church attendance was dropping so dramatically – perhaps a BCS (Body Cavity Search) for all attendees is almost as unpleasant as it sounds.