{"id":3177,"date":"2015-10-27T10:54:39","date_gmt":"2015-10-27T14:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/?p=3177"},"modified":"2015-10-27T11:20:50","modified_gmt":"2015-10-27T15:20:50","slug":"on-the-selfishness-of-skipping-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/on-the-selfishness-of-skipping-church\/","title":{"rendered":"On “The Selfishness of Skipping Church”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It may be an infrequent occurrence when non-Christians stroll into the doors of a church to check it out. I get that. What is hard for me to get my mind around is why that infrequency is becoming more the case for professing followers of Christ.<\/p>\n

In his piece entitled, \u201cThe Selfishness of Skipping Church\u201d, Art Heinz does a good job of getting to the heart of the issue by tying it to our ever-increasing consumer mindset.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"\"Originally posted on artheinz.com<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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\"Old<\/a>The overwhelming consumerist mentality in our nation has spilled over and saturated the thinking of Christians throughout the Church in the United States. \u00a0More and more believers in America approach the concept of finding and remaining in a church the same way they would handle buying a car, shopping for the latest technological advancement, or choosing a movie to watch. \u00a0An institution whose founder came not to be served, but to serve, has been tainted by a ceaseless drum beat of \u201cwhat can you do for me?\u201d \u00a0The worship environment, the style of music, the dress code, the church programming, and the overall focus of the church, is no longer about the Lord and His agenda, but about the personal preferences of individual church shoppers.<\/p>\n

The crisis of commitment and ownership in the American Church is reflected in the 2015 Pew Research Study that showed a serious decline in Americans\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

View original<\/a> 776 more words<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tTweet<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It may be an infrequent occurrence when non-Christians stroll into the doors of a church to check it out. I get that. What is hard for me to get my mind around is why that infrequency is becoming more the case for professing followers of Christ. In his piece entitled, \u201cThe Selfishness of Skipping Church\u201d,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3jKZO-Pf","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1747,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/saving-daylight-part-2-loving-well\/","url_meta":{"origin":3177,"position":0},"title":"Saving Daylight, Part 2: Loving Well","date":"March 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Over the last few days, my thoughts have been consumed by a lovely lady within our church who is nearing the end of her journey on earth.\u00a0 I've thought about the relationship she has had with her devoted husband for 63 years and the love they have shared.\u00a0 I've thought\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christian Living"","img":{"alt_text":"Image","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/davidcprice.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/savingdaylight1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":683,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/church-7-days-a-week\/","url_meta":{"origin":3177,"position":1},"title":"Church, 7 Days a Week","date":"November 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Love this video. Don't know where this church is, but if they're also preaching the Gospel like they seem to be living it, they've got it going on. This needs to become the goal of The Gathering (and every other New Testament church for that matter).","rel":"","context":"In "Church"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1505,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/is-congregational-government-from-satan\/","url_meta":{"origin":3177,"position":2},"title":"Is Congregational Government from Satan?","date":"June 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"James MacDonald has written a very interesting (and certainly controversial) article on church government. \u00a0Though I agree with his reasons for moving away from Congregational polity (our church recently moved to an elder form of church governance), his tone is stronger than anything I\u2019ve ever used. \u00a0Here is an excerpt:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"church government\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2707,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/shallow-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":3177,"position":3},"title":"Shallow Church","date":"December 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Of late, I've been dealing in my own mind with the sillyness that is the American church.\u00a0 We are ridiculously petty and self-absorbed.\u00a0 Like in the days of the early Church, today in many parts of the world, persecution exists and is running rampant.\u00a0 Just last week, I heard of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Church"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1111,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/first-baptist-church-of-the-republic\/","url_meta":{"origin":3177,"position":4},"title":"First Baptist Church of…the Republic?","date":"December 22, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Over at the White Horse Inn, there is a good article on the Church and politics called, No Nation Under God, that I've included in my Google Shared Items Page and I encourage you to read it in its entirety. In this article, Pastor Jason Stellman discusses the way in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Church"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":489,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/what-does-organic-church-really-look-like-anyway\/","url_meta":{"origin":3177,"position":5},"title":"What Does Organic Church Really Look Like, Anyway?","date":"September 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Thinking a lot about church lately.\u00a0 Yeah, I know - it's my job.\u00a0 But I'm thinking more in terms of reformation and growth.\u00a0 You know, what we're really supposed to be...and be about.\u00a0 At our church, we're in a place where we're re-thinking how things are done - What's important.\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Church"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3177"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3179,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177\/revisions\/3179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}