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For your consideration http://news.yahoo.com/why-craft-beer-wont-lure-millennials-christianity-172900142.html;_ylt=AwrSyCQ9MXlStkIA0snQtDMD ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://news.yahoo.com/why-craft-beer-wont-lure-millennials-christianity-172900142.html;_ylt=AwrSyCQ9MXlStkIA0snQtDMD Quote:Why craft beer won’t lure millennials to Christianity
By Keith Wagstaff November 4, 2013 12:29 PM The Week
Millennials are by far the least religious generation in America today. According to Pew Research, millennials are less likely than any other demographic to be affiliated with a religion, to strongly believe in religion’s teachings, or to pray. And they certainly don’t like attending church.
So what to do when millennials aren’t exactly filling the pews? For some congregations, the answer is to make church as un-church-like as possible.
Hence the Church-in-a-Pub, located in Fort Worth, Texas, where (mostly) young people gather at a brewpub to drink craft beer, eat pizza, and, yes, even take communion. For most of the people who attend, according to NPR, this isn’t a supplement to Sunday service — this is it.
It has been so successful that the region’s Evangelical Lutheran Church council declared it an official worshipping community, with plans to expand to other bars in the Forth Worth area.
“I think the institutional church now is getting onboard,” Pastor Philip Heinze told NPR, “because there’s a lot of anxiety frankly about the church’s decline and they’re trying to think outside of that institutional box.”
A similar trend is occurring at Beer & Hymns, a monthly event held at Oregon’s First Christian Portland. And in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the millennial hipster Holy Land, full religious services are held every Sunday at two longtime neighborhood watering holes, Trash Bar and Pete’s Candy Story.
On Monday nights at nearby Union Pool, Rev. Vince Anderson — who originally studied to be a Methodist minister — regularly draws big crowds with his rowdy gospel songs.
As a child, I regularly attended Catholic Mass. I have also randomly wandered into one of the Rev. Vince Anderson’s shows. It’s pretty clear that one is more fun than the other — specifically, the one that involves drinking beer.
But a boozy show is unlikely to lead too many youngsters back into the fold, largely because a) there are plenty of opportunities to drink delicious craft beer without being preached to and b) millennials leave the Church for many reasons, but its lack of “hipness” usually isn’t one of them.
Even some young people who identify as Christian don’t think being “edgy,” at least by traditional Christian standards, will attract millennials. Evangelical Christian Rachel Held Evans argued on CNN against the idea that the “key to drawing twenty-somethings back to church is simply to make a few style updates.” Christianity’s problems, she wrote this summer, go much deeper:
Many of us, myself included, are finding ourselves increasingly drawn to high church traditions — Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, the Episcopal Church, etc. — precisely because the ancient forms of liturgy seem so unpretentious, so unconcerned with being “cool,” and we find that refreshingly authentic.
What millennials really want from the church is not a change in style but a change in substance. We want an end to the culture wars. We want a truce between science and faith. We want to be known for what we stand for, not what we are against.[CNN] In other words, organized religion has become heavily politicized, and no craft IPA or guitar solo is going to change that. This view, to some extent, is supported by none other than the Pope, who warned against focusing exclusively on divisive social issues at the expense of traditional Catholic priorities like helping the poor.Vern Bengtson, sociology professor at the University of Southern California, agreed that conservative firebrands have scared some potential churchgoers away.
In Salon, citing research from his book, Families and Faith: How Religion Is Passed Down Across Generations, he claimed that “the political right has become so identified with a conservative religious agenda that it has alienated moderates who consider organized ‘religion’ a synonym for an anti-gay, anti-abortion, pro-civic religion agenda.”
The answer to organized religion’s problems probably won’t be found at the bottom of a pint glass — no matter how good the beer is.
I really like this, cwald. The issue I have seen is not that churches aren’t at the “loose” extreme; it is that churches are at or moving toward the “tight” extreme. Moderation in all things is a good principle. I have said for a long time that the best thing we can do in the LDS Church is make our meetings worth attending – not by implementing anything along the extremes, but by moving to a more moderate environment focused on more vibrant, comprehensive “worship” (Sacrament Meeting), deeper study (Sunday School) and more involvement in community and unconditional service (3rd hour and mid-week activities).
Old-Timer wrote:I really like this, cwald…
Yes, it is a great article….
But now admit that you sighed and shook your head when you read the title of the thread.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
It did seem like the poster and post did sort of go together. 🙂 And the post itself was pretty good.Quote:But now admit that you sighed and shook your head when you read the title of the thread.
Yeah, GB, there is that.
I’d have had the same reaction initially if you had posted something titled, “Nude Beach Church”.
I can take the ‘Craft Beer Church’ over the ‘Poledancing for Jesus’ link I was sent awhile ago. I hate some of the stupid tendencies of late: organized religion is evil, religion condones child abuse, religion hates gays. religion causes wars, religious people are intellectually inferior… along with Richard Dawkins’ use of extreme religion to pander to his argument. As for the science thing, I’ve long felt evolution is a means for right
wing Christians to avoid engaging with the social gospel.
What can church provide? A community. We rarely see such a thing in western society now… a cross section of class, age etc.
Old-Timer wrote:Quote:But now admit that you sighed and shook your head when you read the title of the thread.
Yeah, GB, there is that.
I’d have had the same reaction initially if you had posted something titled, “Nude Beach Church”.
Sometimes being clothed in righteousness is all you need – along with the “to the pure all things are pure” thing. IMHO.
SamBee wrote:I hate some of the stupid tendencies of late: organized religion is evil, religion condones child abuse, religion hates gays. religion causes wars, religious people are intellectually inferior… along with Richard Dawkins’ use of extreme religion to pander to his argument.
As for the science thing, I’ve long felt evolution is a means for right
wing Christians to avoid engaging with the social gospel.
What can church provide? A community. We rarely see such a thing in western society now… a cross section of class, age etc.
I agree with you. Dawkins does a disservice to himself with the characatures he creates.
And everyone needs community, I like the LDS one.
I would love this, A couple of good Craft Beers would make sitting in church a lot more fun for me. Then I thought about what would happen if the Pharisees in my ward were drunk at church. They are A-holes when they are sober. They would be extraordinarily psycho with a few less inhibitions, I can just imagine the really thoughtful things they would be spouting. On the other hand their inspiration might be more interesting, probably not anymore accurate, but more interesting for sure. It would take more than a literal following of the WOW (drinking beer, a tasty and mild drink made with barley) to fix that problem here.
Agree MacKay. The last pope, Benedict, regardless of what one thinks of him otherwise was clearly a bookish intellectual and has little in common with the snake handlers and tin tabernacle folk that Dawkins loves. As an Englishman, he should know better. The Church of England has little in common with fundamentalist idiots. In fact, its fault is being too vague sometimes.
It’s the oldest trick in the book – use the idiotic extreme to make your
point.
Quote:Then I thought about what would happen if the Pharisees in my ward were drunk at church.
*full body shudder*
😯 :thumbdown: Quote:by Old-Timer » 2013 Nov 05, 13:08
I have said for a long time that the best thing we can do in the LDS Church is
make our meetings worth attending– not by implementing anything along the extremes, but by moving to a more moderate environment focused on more vibrant, comprehensive “worship” (Sacrament Meeting), deeper study (Sunday School) and more involvement in community and unconditional service (3rd hour and mid-week activities).Oh, if it only were true. I would be a 100% attender at church meetings. As it is do Sacrament meeting with some regularity, I skip SS and make cameo appearance at PR, just so they don’t forget who I am. But most of the talks and lessons are numbing. But I get my spiritual fix with much more regularity right here!
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