Stuck in a Rut

So what's wrong with mainline churches? Membership is declining in almost every mainline denomination. I belong to the ELCA which hasn't seen an increase in membership since 1991. The problem is what churches have become. A couple of comments from readers follow.

"It just seems to me that the church (at least ours) can't stop bickering over the minor things. Nothing turns people off more than a church that can't pull together."

"I hear worship used as a noun by most church people to describe a benign weekly activity undertaken without much thought or intentionality. What if we talked about worshiping God in a different way than we are used to talking about it. what if we talked about it in terms of loving God, in terms of adoration or in terms of a need to encounter the divine mystery as often as we can? "

Here's my $.02. Most churches are well intentioned but have lost sight of the very reasons we are called to come together. I don't wish to offend anyone here but I'm going to be blunt. It's my personal experience that there is more concern with not rocking the boat than there is with keeping the status quo in check - and that status quo has little to do with reaching out to the very people who gain to benefit from a relationship with God. We can't take the American flag out of the sanctuary. People don't want to partake of the Lord's supper on a weekly basis because it makes the service too long. We have places to be on Sunday you know. We can't have non-traditional music because that's not the way we do things. The pastor shouldn't talk about things that make us uncomfortable because Jesus was all about not wanting us to evaluate our lives. We don't want to upset good old Frank and Betty because they're high up on the tithing food chain and we really could use new choir robes. I once heard someone complaining that their pastor attracted people who didn't give money to the church. Needy people. Can you imagine? If we're not supposed to be reaching out to needy people then what the hell are we supposed to be doing? We don't want homosexuals, the poor, and ne'er-do-wells stinking up the pews. You know Jesus never hung around with those types, eh? So we plod onward with boring, rote gatherings that have little appeal to so many and very little to do with "encountering the divine mystery" as eloquently stated above. We're left with little more than Sunday morning social clubs for "people like us". There are many good people in these churches but we need to wake up. We need to give God His church back because we've run it into the ground.