Church and current culture

Most main line denominations are seeing dwindling numbers and it seems the mega churches are the only ones growing. In seminary I had a class called "Reading the Audience" an evangelism class called a mission class ( thats a whole another post on the defintion of mission). The instructors talked about Paul and his spreading the word, I challenged them in that I traveled many of the same path of Paul in Turkey and Greece and despite the great work Paul did, much of Turkey is muslim and despite being a "secular" country it is tough to be a christian in Turkey. The response to my challenege was that the wars caused this change in religion majority. I guess that something could be said about not adapting to the culture.

In two sermons I have heard recently this point was brought up and I think something that needs more attention and study. One pastor talked about how the churches of Paul have disapeared but yet christianity still exists in new churches. I am amazed at how young people when surveyed have in large numbers claimed to be spiritual but not religious. I don't think this means there are a lot of out there spiritual young people who are in to crystals, the earth,etc.... but more that young people are turned off by the church establishments.

I am not sure I like the idea of churches droping their denominiation from thier name and it is tough to figure out what denominiatoin some churches are. This seems to be a mega church attempt to deal with the dislike of the traditional church establishments. being a Presbyterian I am proud of my denomoniation connection and do not want to deny that. I am wondering what we do to adapt without denying who we are. How do we make changes that are not just slight changes to programs but how we do church?

One idea I liked was in the Atlanta area a new housing development/retail area was being built that would attract young people. A local Presbyterian church purchased a condo in this development for the new pastor of young adults and they made arrangements to use the common room for bible studies, worship services, and church sponsered fellowship events. The older members of the congregation did not understand the need to meet outside of the church or as I have it it refered to sometimes as "The God Box". This why change thinking is one thing that is hurting our long term church growth.

I think we as Presbyterians and possibly many other denomonations have not put a lot of time or effort in to our ministry towards young adults. I read a book from the Alban institute that talked about the different generations of many churches and the power stuggles that exist with these groups. In alot of churches there are the 60+ retired folks, the late 40 -50's families that have kids in high school or college and then the younger families that have kids ranging from infants to middle school. The one group that is not very present is the young single or married adults without kids. the saying I have heard but think is a cop put is that young people leave the church when they graduate from high school and will retrun when they have kids.

most churches have staff for children and youth, some are begining to hire staff for the older members but few have staff dedicated to young adults. I would love to see more churches hire a staff person for youth and young adults and another one for children. often do to budgets one person, a lot of times the associate pastor is responsible for all of these age groups as well as other pastoral duties, one reason I have not wanted to persue ordained ministry if I stayed in the minsitry for a career.

what do churches offer young people to attract them? how are churches adapting to culture. I think the fast paced culture, that is a technology connected culture is one the church has yet to really embrace. the synical could say that cell phones, computers are detirorating the community that churches once had, I would argue the connections are still there in a differnet way.