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Church Chat:Who do you trust?
Posted by Rev. Jeff Dixon, Senior Equiping Minister, Covenant Community Church on Jul 8, 2003, 15:16
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The Adventure Link
Church Chat:Who do you trust?
Take the time and visit the CCC website for the end of the series on The Terminator of Pain. You will also want to check the Whats New section for all the latest updates.
Here are some more trends that tap into the pulse of culture today.
Confidence in organized religion dropped 30 points in the year after the September 11 attacks, the lowest in the 62 years the Gallup organization has measured the public pulse. Gallup blames the plunge on the Catholic sex abuse scandal and the declining attitude of Catholics toward their church. Protestants fared better.
The Gallup survey, taken in December 2002, shows 59% of U.S. adult Protestants have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in the church itself, while only 42% of Catholics shared this view.
Public opinion of clergy dropped likewise. In 2001, 64% gave ministers high marks for ethical standards; in 2002, the number dropped to 52%.
Clergy rank seventh in favorable opinion of their ethics, behind nurses (79%), pharmacists (67%), military officers (65%), teachers (64%), medical doctors (63%), and police (59%).
Ministers led bankers, journalists, lawyers, and congressmen. Car salesmen and telemarketers, by the way, were at the bottom of the list.
Billy Graham was sixth on the list of most admired men, behind three presidents, one pope, and one busy secretary of state.
In the same survey 67% said our society is only getting worse.
So according to these numbers most think society is getting worse and while that happens there is a decline in the confidence that people have in the church. You realize that it is easy to manipulate numbers....and when you are dealing with numbers alone you have the desire to dig deeper. Keeping that it mind, it is safe to say that the church needs to be very serious about it's role in the culture we live in and we need to take seriously our responsibility to impact this declining culture in relevant and practical ways. It is going to be tougher since there seems to be a lack of confidence in the church and church ministry. I think that one of the ways to overcome that is by believers taking seriously their role in touching and changing the world.
You read these stats and think, "That is going to be tough!" You are correct, it will be tough....but who said impacting the world was going to be easy?
Let's touch and change the world with the love of Jesus together!
The adventure continues....
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