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One issue I neglected to bring up but which I think is important, is the "courage" and "honesty" test. Integrity for short. Can you tell the truth and stand by it? Sadly, my current church like the previous one, failed miserably in this regard. I wrote up the details in another post so I won't...

I disagree. I think church can and should be fun as well as spiritually beneficial. I know this because even 2 to 4 years ago, I was an occasional attendee at my current church and the mood was far more relaxed and easy going. They always felt some competitive pressure with the local mega...

It seems like churches can hang onto the youth until middle school. From high school onward, there is a huge drop-off. Clearly, academic pressures and extracurriculars take up a huge amount of time. College aged onward has been almost completely lost, for now. They have been subject to a lot of...

In all honesty, I miss my previous church. That church appealed primarily to casuals, with first class (free) hospitality, good worship music, polished A/V presentations, and a talented if highly narcissistic lead pastor. The service was almost always entertaining and engaging and since services...

I have been attending the second service but far fewer people attend. The earlier service is the "main" service. There are more single young adults (not many and a little cliquey). Also, it's clear the small groups are a major focus on church socializing and activity so it's good to be a part of...

It's a tricky balance. Trying to ignore 'political' issues can lead to concerns or accusations that the church is unresponsive to important issues of the day. Addressing them explicitly can also be a challenge. For instance, we had a guest pastor recently who was parroting mainstream media...

I forgot to mention that another married woman is also being flirtatious. She is one of the co-leaders of the small groups that another church member is strongly recommending I attend. Hence, my reluctance to attend that small group. A large percentage of the church volunteers are women. All of...

These women know that at church, their husbands must curtail their instinctive impulse to anger in any overt way and sadly some women exploit this sense of honor in their husbands. It creates a sense of humiliation in their husbands and it is disgraceful to witness women engaging in this type...

I have felt a stronger sense of peace over the past few weeks for reasons which are not completely clear to me. The short answer is that my new church must be playing a significant role. Also, I am always looking for ways to improve, to bring my actions into greater alignment with what is...

I was referring more to what single young adults are doing in lieu of church attendance. As in, the ones who used to attend.

These types of interactions are discouraging. It was a relief to get away from my previous church because of the temptress issue. The larger the church the more often it occurs. I've noticed that flirty married women will ONLY refrain from flirtatious behavior when they are with their...

The church is still the single largest gathering place on a weekly basis in many small to mid sized cities. With the bottom falling out of young adult church attendance, what are young adults doing? I suppose they are just diffused out into the myriad activities available in any given...

At my current church, 20's and 30 somethings regardless of relationship status is a huge hole in the church demographic. Even 40 somethings seem to be pretty rare. Then, there is a big spike up from age 50 upwards. There is no incentive even for the most devoted of single young adults to...

Those are some really good insights dragonfox. I've seen some of the children's classes at a few churches and it's often a very loud, chaotic, unruly situation. It's really tough to get the kids to focus and I can see how it could be stressful for the instructors to maintain control. Young...

I like my new church. More than that, I respect the members of my new church. It isn't over the top or unnecessarily demonstrative, but there is a strong but quiet faith which is so unique compared to the previous "megachurch" I used to attend. One ongoing issue however is one of married women...

You used to see large numbers of young adult christians is in college towns with large universities. Now, even there numbers have dropped off sharply.

Sadly, I don't think young adult or general attendance will rebound sharply, certainly not IRL. Of course, some people will return, but many will also stay away because they are afraid. Even many of those who do attend remain as far away from people as possible, sitting in their cars...

I don't feel any need to tell him off, he means well and is generally friendly. This is a medium sized church with passionate believers so I am adjusting from the larger church with hordes of non christians constantly on the lookout for free hospitality and/or free daycare to true christians...

It doesn't apply to this one, but many formerly very active and popular forums have declined very sharply in usage in the past 5 to 10 years. Instead, you have platforms like twitter and instagram and alas, tik tok. Attention spans are getting shorter and shorter and even complete sentence or...

I suspect the trends above accelerated in the past 2 years, and either leveled off or even recovered slightly very recently. One area where I've seen tremendous growth is in online "participation" where some of the larger churches have seen a doubling or tripling of subscribers over the past 2...