Other "Thinking Drafts" and writing by Keith Drury -- http://www.indwes.edu/tuesday .

What Revival?

Americans Christians love the idea of 'revival.' We like to imagine one is just around the corner and as soon as it gets here it will fix our crumbling spirituality and get the church back on track. Worse, our hope causes us to see revival mirages when there is nothing but desert before us. Nevertheless, expecting a revival is a popular American's pastime. It fits our optimistic outlook. Many say we are right now in a great revival.

Are we? Is a revival happening right under our noses? What about the Promise Keepers? Aren't these gatherings a sign of revival? Or, what about the quadrillion Super Churches we now have sprawling about at the edges of every city? Or, how about all the emphasis on church planting? Aren't these signs of revival? What about the scores of preachers on TV? And that doesn't even mention Dobson, Christian bookstores, the Church Growth movement, contemporary Christian music, holy laughter, Amway and the 700 club. What more can I say? Certainly we must be right on the edge of the "Coming world revival," right?

Sorry. If this is revival, then something's out of whack. What? If we're in a revival, how come it's not affecting church attendance. Consider Barna's latest findings. Only 37% of Americans say they've attended a religious service in the past week -- down from 49% just five years ago. You read that right... a 12% decline since 1991! This is what the church growth experts call a 'significant negative-growth rate.' If it was happening in your church, you might be looking for another church. But when it happens across a whole nation, you say, 'the bottom's dropping out.'

This is revival? If we were having a real revival, wouldn't you think people would go to religious services more, not less? What kind of 'revival' makes you attend church less? What we've had isn't real revival, but 'revival hype.' It is 'virtual revival' - all the sensations of revival without any of the risk or the cost. Gee, and right after we redesigned the church to reach all the 'seekers' we were told were interested. But, where are they? Apparently not in church.

The greatest attendance collapse came among people age 69 and above (a whopping 21% free fall since 1991!). And those 50-68 registered a 6% loss in the last five years. OK, maybe we kept the Boomers? Sorry, they dropped like flies after a Yard Guard... down a colossal 19% in five years! In fact, the only age group which 'held its own' was the 18-30 group - 'busters' or Xers - which experienced 'just' a loss of 1 percent. When you total the figure up we net a 12% loss in five years. So what do all these figures add up to? Not revival. What you've got to put in the 'tally' column is a major national collapse in church attendance. In just five years.

Now I suppose some will say I shouldn't be giving this information out so freely, seeing that most Americans determine what is right by the polls. That is, when they hear that everybody else is dropping out of church - or at least attending less - they'll get on board the latest fad, the way they did when they were told that boomers were coming back to church. Good point. However. USA Today published Barna's results last Thursday, and having an even larger circulation than this column, I figured the word is already out. Besides, there is something really serious here to think about. After all our redesigning of the church to reach more people, how come less people are going to church than before our redecorating?

What's going on here? Why are people dropping out? Are more people just coming less? Have we bargained away something vital in our effort to entertain the masses? In putting Christian commitment 101 on the lower shelf for the seekers, have we succeeded in making seekers out of our formerly committed people? Is it hard to keep them down on the [local church] farm after they've seen the big city [convention] lights? Why are we seemingly holding the Twentysomethings? What happened to the oldsters? Are Barna's figures screwy? Are people just more willing to honestly report their non-attendance? If so, why? What does all this mean... other than confirming the fact that we are *not* in a great revival right now?

So what do you think?

To contribute to the thinking on this issue e-mail your response to Tuesday@indwes.edu