Let’s not panic about the “spiritual but not religious”

I just read this great article in which Larry Peers urges us to resist the urge to hit the  panic button everytime someone tells us that they are “spiritual, but not religious.” These are the people who tell us that they love God, but not the church. And when they tell us that, we can almost hear the next shoe dropping with “that’s why we are leaving the church.”

Here is my summary of the hope Peers offers:

  1. Some of the people who drop out of church will be back later on in life
  2. If we listen, we will often find that people’s complaints are tactical, and can be easily resolved.
  3. The deeper criticisms we hear serve us well when we use them to examine (really examine) whether our actions are living up to our ideals.
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