Pretty good Cat. Not sure that it’s lack (religion) is what cause splits. I am surprised you say there is a lack of fellowship and or commitment. I thought baptists meet twice on Sunday and have a midweek service and are quite tight knit. They have home bible studies and sometimes form schools for their kids and socialize a bit also. Their church is quite “visible”. Most mainline denominations have hierarchy. Good discussion but not sure what you are mentioning at the end has to do with view of “religion”. I do see folks thinking of religion as doing things in regards to worship or dealing with interaction with God, individually or corporately. Jesus said religion should deal more with helping others.
Oh, yes, there are definitely plenty of opportunities for fellowship, and the “faithful few” show up without fail!
But everyone will tell you that in most Evangelical Protestant churches, 10% of the people do 90% of the work! Midweek prayer service/Bible study is one of the most poorly-attended services in the church. And when it comes time for various service opportunities (teaching Sunday school or Awanas, chairing the missionary conference, joining the choir, or playing piano/organ, etc.)–it’s like pulling teeth to get anyone to commit. The same people that volunteer for service are the same people who show up for the MIdweek service, and these are the same people who are actively promoting friendship and fellowship in the church by inviting people to their home or organizing church picnics, etc.
In Evangelical Protestant churches, most of the people who sit in the pews on Sunday morning will not be seen again by anyone in the church until the next Sunday morning. And many of these people will be gone within a year, and will be sitting in another church because they “weren’t being fed” at their previous church.
That’s why I say that they don’t buy the idea of a commitment to others, sticking together through thick and thin, come what may, and working through conflicts together, not just departing in a huff. For many Christians, including many Catholics, it’s all about their “personal journey,” not about a journey alongside other Christians.
Catholics are the same way when it comes to commitment to various parish activities–it’s hard to get them to come to a weekly Bible study or volunteer to work with a group of children or teenagers. But I personally think this is because all these things are fairly new in the Catholic Church in the United States. Until the last few decades, most Catholics belonged to a parish and actually were involved with the people in that parish OUTSIDE of the Mass. They lived in the same neighborhood, attended the same schools, shopped at the same stores, and actually saw each other and often socialized with each other outside of Mass.
But nowadays, people don’t associate with their neighbors, and the kids are at schools all over the city and town (or homeschooled), and the kids don’t play ball in the biggest yard now, they go to club sports several nights a week, and the parents don’t have card parties or cocktail parties anymore, they go out to dinner with a few close friends that may not live anywhere near them. Everyone is much more mobile now (it used to be that most families only had 1 car) and so we often go away for the weekend and even during the week, we might drive to the mall or to a movie.
So I think that the idea of church-generated activities is still new and different for Catholics. For all the converts like me, it’s the norm, so we’re kicking the door in trying to get it going!
