by Ian Buchanan

Created on: March 11, 2009

I've always gone to church, and have become involved to a fairly high level for a number of years. My motivation is to strengthen my relationship with God through accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour. It wasn't always that way: for a long time I attended because of youth groups and young couple's activities, and from my background you just did go to church on Sunday morning.

We moved to a suburban church when our children started to arrive and we were quickly into a full social life with other folks our own age. That's what church was about then, heck even the minister and his family were into the social stuff as much as anyone, and Sunday morning was essentially just another opportunity to hang out. There might have been a little bit about religion, but what I remember was more sermons about social justice than about theology. That was in the mid 1970s and we were still in the grip of flower power: make love not war.

I don't know how it happened, but I started to dig a little deeper, and sought more than all the parties and good times. Once I started down that road I began to see things and people in a different light.

I had noticed that a work acquaintance was often involved in the worship service. He read regularly, helped serve communion, and was often the contact person for church matters that were a little deeper than the family car rally. One day I rode the train with him and asked him what had changed in his outlook to become more involved in the worship services. I was also interested in what role his faith played in his work life because I was struggling with mine in a very, very secular company.

He told me bluntly that his only purpose was to be seen. He didn't have a religious motivation at all, it was simply that his wife wanted him to go with her every week and he decided he might as well use the opportunity to increase his personal profile. I was shocked and dismayed that I thought we shared similar values and could have held each other up in the workplace. Since then I have studied why people attend church and I have concluded that the majority are there to fulfill some obligation that doesn't necessarily involve developing a personal relationship with God at all

More people today don't disguise their true feeling about religion by not attending church in the first place. Mainline denominations have been in serious decline for the last forty years, and many of the non denominational mega churches will admit to having very active back doors.

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>