Americans just aren’t going to church the way they used to – literally.
In Lucas, Texas, a city about 30 miles northeast of Dallas, worshippers at the Presbyterian Church of the Master can actually drive in, see the pastor outside, but remain in their cars to hear the service.
It’s drive-in church.
The innovative approach to Sunday worship launched Sunday by Pastor David Ray comes just as statistics show that fewer folks are going to church these days.
Since 1991, church attendance in America has dropped nine percentage points from 49 percent in 1991 to 40 percent in 2011, according to a recent study by the Ventura, California-based Barna Group.
The greatest change in the report is the increase in the number of people categorized as unchurched. That’s a designation for people who have not attended any religious event at a church for anything other than special ceremonies, such as a wedding or funeral, during the prior six-month period.
“In 1991, just one-quarter of adults (24 percent) were unchurched. That figure has ballooned by more than 50 percent to 37 percent today,” according to Barna.
Another study, this one by W. Bradford Wilcox at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, shows that church attendance among less-educated whites has dropped in recent years.
“Our study suggests that the less educated are dropping out of the American religious sector similarly to the way in which they have dropped out of the American labor market,” Wilcox said in an article published by Huffington Post.
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article courtesy of BlackAmericaWeb.com/CNN.com
