By the Way: Meeting friends a big part of going to church
By Medicine Hat News on October 27, 2018.
The year was 1952. It was my first parish. It consisted for four congregations. Two churches were in small towns, one was a country church, the other met in a country school house. With a lot of zeal there was a service in each congregation every Sunday with a drive of 120 miles! Today the church in one small town no longer is there with little of the town remaining. The country school is gone as is the congregation. The country church is now a heritage site but the congregation no longer exists. So there remains but one congregation in the one town remaining. This pattern of decline is happening on the prairies where fewer people live on the farms and the population in the small towns is going down. To survive In a number of instances a minister may even serve two churches in the same town of different denominations i.e. Lutheran and United and/or Anglican. Or as in the Swift Current area, services in nearby towns is served out of a staff of a city church. All of this is because smaller congregations cannot afford to continue. In the bigger towns and cities there is a different story. The people are there but they are not going to church! In Medicine Hat several churches have closed because the numbers of those attending and supporting the congregation has diminished. A shortage of priests and smaller struggling parishes resulted in the bishop mandating the uniting of one parish in the Holy Family church. What is disturbing in all of this is that that churches of all denominations are showing a decline in numbers all across Canada. It makes no difference in patterns and styles of worship. In some instances there are no students in Sunday School. The sermons in the parish I attend are excellent so that is not an issue. Social issues have been with us throughout history and we seem to overcome them as time goes on. Several years ago I attended a session on church growth and the speaker had us write down why people went to church.You name it, there were all kinds of reasons offered. Then he said, “The reason people go to church is to meet their friends!” Have you ever gone to church where there is not one person you know who is there? Did you feel like going back? Has it ever occurred to you that the reason others stopped coming is because you were not there? To attend now and then is not going to cut it. What is more a stranger to your church is a lot more at ease if they come with someone just maybe you. You may not have any great new idea to enlarge the attendance and work of your church but you could make a start by just being a friend. Sidney Nelsonispastor emeritus of Unity Lutheran parish. He has served parishes in Frontier, Lethbridge, MontanaandMontreal. 7-6
