We all know, whether we read about it or observe it, that church attendance is down relative to what it was before the pandemic. That’s why this quick paragraph from RobinHood caught my eye:

…the Boston Celtics prepare to face the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals. The second-most-watched US sports league [NBA] sold out 59 consecutive games last month, rebounding after the number of paid fans at arenas had dropped 7% during the regular season. Postseason viewership is up 14% from last year.

It’s not quite an apples-to-apples comparison but there are similarities:

• Both sports and church had zero in-person attendance for a time.
• During that time, both presented programs via technology (of course, sports viewing has always been available via technology).
• Now in-person is available for both as well as viewing on a screen at home. 

Unlike churches, sports are still packing out their arenas. Why not churches? Lifeway reports that attendance is down 27% (my observation and that of the pastors I’ve talked with is that “down 27%” is generous).

Dave Wyrtzen posted an analysis:

Now that the Covid Plague is waning, the crowds are packing out basketball arenas, and here in Texas the new Ranger baseball field in Arlington is starting to fill up. We can watch everything on big screen TV but there’s still nothing like being able to see the real thing in person...Whether it’s an athletic game or a spiritual gathering, when the real thing happens, it’s not hard to get a crowd. When we gather as believers, if there’s no power of authenticity, then all the state-of-the-art media won’t be enough to get folks to stay. –Dave Wyrtzen, June 1, 2022

“Power of authenticity” – that’s what Dave Wyrtzen believes the early church had that maybe some of our churches don’t. Dave’s blog refers to the healing of the lame man in Acts 3. So is it authentic power we lack? Or authentic community? (See Acts 2.42 – 47) Or what?

I was watching the Colorado Avalanche Hockey team last Saturday night, and the Avalanche’s home, Ball Arena in Denver, appeared full…but the Avalanche was playing in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada! Was the Denver gathering authentic community? I don’t think so, but the fans surely had a common and authentic devotion to the Avalanche. Maybe what needs to be authentic is our commitment to Jesus…and each other.

I’m just thinking out loud. But something is certainly different between people’s commitment to and enthusiasm for their sports teams and their commitment to Jesus or church attendance. Or, as I have quoted Annie Dillard before:

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return. ― Annie Dillard, “An Expedition to the Pole” from Teaching a Stone to Talk (1982)

I wrote a follow-up blog to the Annie Dillard quote back in February 2020. That blog contained a letter I sent to World Magazine when they published a picture of a church with seven people in attendance.

The photo of the United Methodist Church in Kansas says it all. It’s not just that there are only seven people in the building; it’s that they are using a form designed for large groups. When people expect, even demand, a particular form and refuse to change even when it must appear to be madness to any objective onlookers, it’s no wonder people looking for any sign of life and relevance can’t leave fast enough. – Bob Ewell, 2005

Maybe that’s part of the reason people aren’t coming back. They’ve discovered that in some cases, there is nothing to come back to.

And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: “The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. ‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.'” (Revelation 3.1, 2, ESV)