Lifestyle

Why People Don’t Go To Church Anymore

The holiday season is a time for many to share in religious traditions by attending a house of worship.  However, a growing number of Americans don’t attend church across all denominations for a wide variety of reasons, ranging from not having time to attend to not having faith anymore.

The so-called cultural wars play a significant role in fewer people in the pews because of religious conflicts with social issues like the role of women in the church, abortion, and LGBT acceptance.

I am one of those people who doesn’t attend church anymore not because I am not faithful, but because I practice my faith in other ways.  I don’t feel the need to be in a church to be a good Christian.  I am very active in my community supporting my local library and making my neighborhood a little better for everyone.  I think how you conduct yourself in your everyday life as a Christian is more important than if you show up for church Sunday mornings.

Nonetheless, fewer people in the pews is not good business for any church.  Because of this, houses of worship are taking desperate measures to get more people back into churches.  A lot of churches are using targeted marketing jargon like “progressive” and “modern” to attract new people, but in reality, they still hold very conservative and traditional beliefs.

Case in point, I have a gay friend in New Jersey who started attending a church in her community two years ago. It is one of these new hipster church startups where the minister and most of the church staff and members are in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, and they dress casually for Sunday service.  She always felt very welcome in the church by other members, and she even met her current girlfriend there.  Of course, this church uses “progressive and modern” terms on its website and social media.  Unfortunately, she recently found out how the church really feels about her.

She applied to become the head of the Sunday School program when the position opened.  She thought she would be a shoo-in for the job, as she is an assistant principal at a local elementary school, and she was the only person to apply for the job.

She was soundly rejected from the job.  Why?  The minister told her that it would be against God’s teachings to have an openly gay person and a woman running the program.  Of course, she was taken aback.  She asked other church members about this, and they didn’t seem to know about this rule either.  Then she realized that only heterosexual men held all the leadership roles in the church.  Now she is contemplating if she should continue worshipping at the church.

Mind you; all churches have a right to set their own doctrines and believe what they want to believe.  However, they don’t have the right to deceive people.  I would have more respect for a church that boldly claims their beliefs, even if I don’t agree with them, than a church that lies to get more attendees.

True people of faith stand in their truth.  If you believe women should have a limited role in the church and homosexuality is an abomination, fine.  Say what you mean, and mean what you say! It is neither modern or progressive to say that someone can’t have a leadership role in the church because of their sexuality or gender today.  I don’t have to agree with a church’s doctrine, but I can respect it. But, I can NOT respect churches that lie.

Churches should be more honest and transparent about their beliefs.  Preferably, a church’s belief system should be declared on its website.  At least, in that case, my friend and others can make informed choices to attend.

Unfortunately, deception and desperation go hand-in-hand today.

GWA’s Offline Marketing Strategizing

Branding

This week over on my company’s blog, we have an interesting post on the importance of offline marketing.  I thought I would share it with you all.  It’s food for thought!

Digital marketing is no longer a trend among small businesses and nonprofits; it is a requirement to stay competitive in today’s tech-savvy economy.  However, this doesn’t mean you should ditch your offline strategy.  Even in the age of iPhones and Snapchat, there are still consumers who want to understand and interact with your organization’s brand through old-fashioned communication like brochures, business cards, and flyers.  Having both an online and offline marketing plan with consistent branding will make sure your brand is seamlessly seen and understood.

With the variety of channels available, this also an opportunity to gather information about customers. and better understand brand interaction.  Best of all, offline marketing allows organizations to have more direct and personalized relationships with consumers.  The simple acts of face-to-face conversations and handshakes can still make a difference in whether or not a customer wants to do business with you.

Global Wire Associates offers offline marketing support for our clients through collateral strategy consultation. Collateral is print and/or online media used to market a product, service or campaign. Collateral can include business cards, flyers, websites, brochures, portfolios, and e-books. We can design a collateral strategy that supports your organizational or personal growth.

To learn more, contact us at globalwireonline.org/contact.

The Relationship Between Disability and Handicap

I got into this really interesting conversation the other day with a colleague about her struggles living with a disability. Much of it has more to do with how society views her disability than anything else, and especially the language used to describe her. Many people don’t realize that it isn’t okay to use the word ‘handicap’ and it is preferred to use people with disabilities. I went online and found a lot of discussions just on the differences between disability and handicap. This video does a good job of explaining the issue.

The Plight of Mega Commuters

I was talking to my friend Charlene the other day.  She and her family recently moved to Poughkeepsie, NY.  This is the third time she has moved in five years.  She works as a medical billing specialist in a Manhattan hospital.

Charlene was born and raised in Brooklyn but was forced to move out in 2013 due to the housing crunch and gentrification.  Her commute to work on the subway from Brooklyn took 20-30 minutes.  She moved to Flushing, Queens and lived there for about a year and a half until her landlord sold her building and the new owners doubled the rent.  Her commute from Flushing to midtown Manhattan on the subway also doubled to 40-60 minutes.

She then moved to New Rochelle and her commute actually improved a little, as she was able to take the Metro-North into Manhattan in about 35 minutes, but she had to take a bus, Uber or have someone drop her off at the train station, which was a 10-minute drive.  Unfortunately,  her husband’s job was downgraded to a part-time position, which meant a lower salary.  This summer Charlene, her husband, and three kids decided to move to Poughkeepsie into an affordable housing unit.  Charlene’s commute to Manhattan is now two hours.  She had thought of getting another job, but she says that she now has seniority at the job with good benefits, and if she took another job in her field, she would have to start at a lower salary and work her way up again like an entry-level employee.  Her job also requires her to be a New York resident, so moving to New Jersey or Connecticut is not an option.

This is the plight of a growing number of Americans who are considered by the U.S. Census Bureau to be “mega-commuters” – those who commute more than 90 minutes and 85 miles one way to work regularly.  According to the Bureau’s report, there are 600,000 mega-commuters throughout the country. If you include people who commute at least an hour each way, that number jumps to 10.8 million, or a little over 8 percent of U.S. workers.

While telecommuting is on the rise, there are still going to be jobs that require workers to be in a designated workplace, which can be many miles or another city or state away.  Why is this happening?  Most of these mega-commuters are being forced to live further away from major metropolitan areas because of raising property rates, which also cause higher rental rates.  Many low to middle-income people are being forced to live further away from their jobs.  This is a very unfair, unfortunate result of gentrification.

I remember having a job once when I was younger where my commute was two hours.  I didn’t own a car, so I had to take one bus for 20 minutes, a subway ride for 40 minutes and then the commuter rail for 20 minutes and another bus for 20 minutes to this job west of Boston. It was one of my first jobs out of college and couldn’t afford a car and Uber wasn’t around back then.  I needed the job not just because it was good money for an entry-level person, but also because it would help leverage my resume for a better job.  That better job closer to home did come about a year later, but this was a grueling commute.  Today, I am very lucky that I am self-employed and can telecommute, but what about the other mega-commuters?

Clearly, there needs to be a serious discussion about regulating housing rates for all households, regardless of income, but this is also an infrastructure issue as well.  If this country had better mass transit options, especially for intercity rail systems, maybe commutes could be shorter and more efficient.

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