Why I still love the church

I often think I hear colleagues asking, “How could we attract nuns to our church?” Actually they’re talking about “the nones,” of course. One of the clearest findings of the Pew Forum’s new religious landscape study is that fewer and fewer people have any religious affiliation at all. Catholics and mainline Protestants show the biggest drop. 

I feel pretty conflicted about all of this. First, I think, “Who cares about numbers? Jesus didn’t care about numbers.” 

Then I think, “At least the people left in mainline churches really want to be there. Folks don’t just come to sit in the pews or to see and be seen. They’re searching for God. They’re living their questions!”