Old country churches?

[Ultralight]

When I was a kid growing up in rural Ohio our little town of about 300 people had its own church. I went to summer bible school there, took part in the youth group, attended services, etc.

The church was also a community center -- sometimes migrants would set up cots in the basement and live there while picking veggies and fruits in the fields. There would sometimes be potlucks or bake-offs or Fourth of July celebrations there.

We'd skateboard in the parking lot, play two-hand-tap football in the big side yard, shoot hoops there, or it would just be an informal meeting spot (Let's meet at the crabapple tree at the church at 4pm").

I found out that over the past 15 or so years this church has been dying. The parishioners are all like 75. And there is perhaps 20 of them.

Apparently a big Wal-Mart church in a nearby bigger town siphoned off all the members.

And this is not only happening in my hometown, but in other little towns with country churches too throughout the entire area.

It is sad. Anyone else see this happening?

[Sad Eyed Lady]

Yes, I see it happening all around. I live in a small town in a rural area where I grew up and have returned to after living elsewhere. When I was a child/young adult in this place each community had local elementary schools, local churches and local family owned grocery stores. These were places that identified each community, they were the hubs and meeting places and were vital. Most communities even had local post offices. Sadly, now all the outlying elementary schools have closed with all the kids being consolidated in town and one other new school built in another part of the county. Local post offices are closed for the most part, there may still be a couple left, the little groceries are gone except for one or two. And the churches are still there but not as thriving as they once were. Most people are again consolidated in one or two of the big "community churches" that have sprung up in town and the little country churches are hurting. I hate to see all these communities lose their identities and become a part of "the town". I agree, it is sad.

[ToomuchStuff]

Walmart makes churches now?
I know where my grandmothers family is buried, that whole rural community is dying, along with its church. When my great aunt was buried there, she hadn't be around that town, since before 1975, and yet the turn out was amazing by the people that remembered the family.
Here, I see kind of two types. Those that are or have remained religious, and those that either have no interest, no belief, or agnostic and think it is a waste of time, to belong to a group that wished to control you.
I would think you would be happy at the lower numbers of the mass delusioned.

[CathyA]

We still have several small churches very close by. But about 12 miles away, there are several mega-churches. Hopefully they stay at a distance.
One of the small churches burned down, but they rebuilt with just a slightly bigger side room, where meetings and voting is held. The other church, about 1 mile from here is still its original building. The dark wood pews, altar, etc., are so beautiful. And they ring the bell every sunday.

[Zoe Girl]

There is a church that meets at our school on Sundays. They bring in an amazing amount of stuff each week. Lots of money in their set-up, and I don't know what they pay the school for the building use. It seems that is one way that churches are going, renting store fronts, multi-use of places like schools, and then overall churches are just not appealing to younger people. I heard something like 13% of millennials are involved in church, don't quote me since I didn't look it up, However it is a really low number. Some of my younger friends who are Christian have had a hard time finding a church. A lot of it is because they feel the older members don't understand what things are like for them. The 'prosperity' preaching is the biggest factor I hear. The idea if you just give then you will be blessed with prosperity, in a terrible economy for young people. There are also some churches with really out of date ideas on social issues, that isn't helping either.

So I am sorry that the communities are impacted since churches have had a lot of social value, but not sorry that churches are closing when they do not address the spiritual needs of our young adults.

[KayLR]

It's just evolution IMO. There are buildings, and there are churches. The little country church I went to as a kid is now a B & B. There are lots of mega churches around now that offer younger generations what they're looking for: live music, multimedia services, dynamic things for their kids to get involved in. It's just a different culture than we oldsters grew up in. Long gone are the robed choirs and after church potlucks.

Not saying one is better than the other---churches are just changing like everything else. Or they're dying.

[catherine]

I haven't been to church in a while, at least on a regular basis. I pop in to my Catholic Church at the end of the street from time to time. But I've been more Protestant than Catholic over the past 4 decades, at least in terms of commitment to specific congregations. The last one we attended for a while was/is a wonderful old Presbyterian church in New Brunswick. It has a Hungarian heritage, but the demographics have shifted greatly, and now the 70-ish pastor is preaching to what I call a "motley crew"--a handful of misfits. It's not like the white bread, middle class churches you might think of. This church has homeless guys, Indians, a Jewish couple, a typical white couple who dresses alike every week, a Hispanic guy who wears a Superman T-shirt every single day, and a bunch of other characters. The pastor's sermons are great. He's such a nice guy. But there are probably just over a dozen of regular churchgoers every week, and there are 2 Presbyterian churches in the area, so the Presbytery is pressuring him to retire so they can close his church and sell off the property to prime real estate developers. But he'll have none of it. The day he steps down as pastor of that church is the day his life will be over, either figuratively or literally.

OTOH, the Catholic Church I mentioned at the end of the street--hundreds of people go there for each of the 5 Sunday masses. It's not a modern "megachurch" with a lot of multi-media. It's just the same church, with the same pastor, with the Sunday and daily masses served the same way for decades. I think the Protestant mainline churches have suffered tremendously in the Northeast.

[SteveinMN]

In outstate Minnesota, that's happening because many of those communities literally are dying -- employment has disappeared as employers consolidate or leave outright for what they believe are greener pastures; the kids move out after college because there's little economic opportunity left; and the parents are too invested financially (house, farmland, lifestyle) to move away. In the metro Twin Cities, the influx of Millenials and immigrants (who don't attend mainstream denominations in big numbers) has led many existing small churches to disband as elderly members die before new members can replace them.

In a sense, churches are experiencing the "over-retailing" that retail is enduring right now. When it took a couple of hours to go from your farm's village to the next town of any size to go to your church, it made sense for many smaller churches to dot the landscape. Now that membership is flagging and you can drive to the next town in less than half an hour on Sunday morning, having so many small churches is a bit redundant -- and more expensive to maintain than the remaining members can manage. The "Walmart" churches -- the megachurches that offer graduated child care and a bookshop and a coffee bar and multiple kinds of services -- attract people the same way Walmart drew people from stopping at the smaller local grocery store and hardware store and clothing store. It's our lifestyle right now.

[Tenngal]

In outstate Minnesota, that's happening because many of those communities literally are dying -- employment has disappeared as employers consolidate or leave outright for what they believe are greener pastures; the kids move out after college because there's little economic opportunity left; and the parents are too invested financially (house, farmland, lifestyle) to move away. In the metro Twin Cities, the influx of Millenials and immigrants (who don't attend mainstream denominations in big numbers) has led many existing small churches to disband as elderly members die before new members can replace them.

In a sense, churches are experiencing the "over-retailing" that retail is enduring right now. When it took a couple of hours to go from your farm's village to the next town of any size to go to your church, it made sense for many smaller churches to dot the landscape. Now that membership is flagging and you can drive to the next town in less than half an hour on Sunday morning, having so many small churches is a bit redundant -- and more expensive to maintain than the remaining members can manage. The "Walmart" churches -- the megachurches that offer graduated child care and a bookshop and a coffee bar and multiple kinds of services -- attract people the same way Walmart drew people from stopping at the smaller local grocery store and hardware store and clothing store. It's our lifestyle right now.

your post explains almost exactly what is happening to my church. Young people leaving town for college, then work. Young families who are left shop for "entertainment and services."
No commitment. Always a trip out of town or a ballgame to attend. Come in once a month instead of weekly. Older members dying off and the faithful attendance and financial contributions are missed.

[Ultralight]

If all these folks were becoming secular humanists, then great.

But atheist that I am, I still have a hard time totally disregarding the old country church. When I was a kid it was a place we mostly enjoyed!

[Chicken lady]

Ultralight, we have several small churches in our little Ohio township. There used to be two, a Baptist and a Methodist in my “town” (which also has a body shop with a tow truck and an elementary school - plus houses) but the Methodist church closed because of reduced membership. the next “town” over (3 miles) has a Presbyterian church, a barbq joint which used to be a general grocery and sandwhich shop, a playground, a restaurant in the old school that is open 4 days a week, a post office that offers package pick up, postage, and p.o. boxes, but does not service mail routes or sort mail, and a tractor repair place.

between the two “towns”is the fire station - which serves as that community hub you are missing - voting, charity events, club meetings, youth activities, baby showers, even weddings.

things change.

[Ultralight]

things change.

I know. But that doesn't mean for the good.

[ApatheticNoMore]

less people go to church as people are more secular, probably the most obvious explanation, though the Armenian church right by here crowds out at times.

But what do they do socially and in the community then? Uh post on social media I guess ... even bowling alone would require like leaving the house and not staring at a screen for a few hours.

[Ultralight]

But what do they do socially and in the community then? Uh post on social media I guess ... even bowling alone would require like leaving the house and not staring at a screen for a few hours.

In my hometown the kids play video games. Opioids and beer and maryjane are also unfortunately major pastimes of adults and teens.

[Chicken lady]

Last night I had a house full of beloved millennials. Three married couples, one dad with a two y.o. Whose wife had to work because they have schedules that minimize child care needs, two singles still in college, one single working in her church’s youth program, all with educations jobs, and friends, and homes (two couples own houses), and community involvement - none with student debt (choices were made based on avoiding that, hard work and luck often came through.). Phones buzzed twice - once a boyfriend “oh, I’ll call him later” and the phone was turned off, and once mommy calling in to ask how her little one was enjoying the party.

i think that many of the parents in my generation failed their kids by not helping them focus on working toward those things, not helping them create maps that led from point a to b to c. Not turning off the electricity and shoving them into the real world often enough.

[Zoe Girl]

I relate a lot to the millennials, and have 3 of my own actually. I think the church decline has been happening for a long time, and the ways that we 'belong' change. So we are in a real crisis of belonging actually, but the way church was treated when i was growing up did not help. I felt for many of my friends and sometimes myself that it was more about following strict ideas rather than a sense of personal or family belonging. Of course in my group that was 50% LGBTQ I had very few friends in the 80's who were welcome in their churches or families.

I did Maker Faire a few months ago, great experience! I felt so at home with the people there. I saw a maker space booth that had wooden cut outs of celtic knotwork, talked to a woman there and her husband designs some himself. I draw mine. In any case he came over to my booth and we talked for an hour about drawing knotwork, he computer images his and I freeform. One thing was that he shared how after they had 3 kids pretty quickly he had a hard time emotionally, gap.

[SteveinMN]

i think that many of the parents in my generation failed their kids by not helping them focus on working toward those things, not helping them create maps that led from point a to b to c. Not turning off the electricity and shoving them into the real world often enough.
I believe multiple systemic failures have contributed to the inability of many kids to succeed, at least in the terms we're defining here (home ownership, low-/no-debt, stable-ish relationships).

Our Millenial daughter never had to take a class in home economics; any domestic skills she learned came from mom, who (fortunately) had a stable job in an environment that prioritized family life. The ascendancy of easy credit and the nationwide advertising of hot new must-have (not) possessions have put a few generations into consistent debt. Job stability makes buying a house both expensive and risky. No doubt kids can learn all that but it either has to be done on their own initiative or with their parents' sponsorship -- and I wonder how many other Millennials (or even older) never learned how to balance a checkbook or cook or enjoy non-branded free fun.

[Float On]

There is a small country church a mile from my parent's home. They've bought plots there so my brother and I can visit on the way to the farm. It's small as in 6 rows of pews on each side. We were excited when they added on to the front to add a rest room. I remember going to community things there and having to visit the outhouse even in the 80's. It has a sunday service once a month. The pastor serves at 4 small churches. They have "sings" every Sunday night and still hold community events like neighborhood potlucks or fall hayride.
I like driving by the small Mennonite church about 12 miles east of the farm. They all drive black cars with the chrome painted black.

[ToomuchStuff]

I know. But that doesn't mean for the good.


Your starting middle age, if you think change automatically means for the bad.

[Ultralight]

Your starting middle age, if you think change automatically means for the bad.

I think it varies, but often is bad.