Pete...this is absolutely the best, most significant and even grave thread you ever posted, although I'm sure there's others that I've missed, and suddenly I find my respect for you at the place where it should be when I'm not passionate, drunk or feeling prideful and superior. You just showed me a side of yourself that I haven't seen yet (for whatever reason. Not important) and I appreciate it

That being said...there's just too much in this article to deal with in this thread. It's so...meaty...that it needs to be dealt with in little bites, if you follow me. There's literally weeks, months even, of deep conversation in this one post. In fact, I'd really encourage anyone on the OPP to cast aside every prejudice and engage in this thread if you have skin in this game, which I just realized Pete has.

The Christian Church has gone through some strange and painful changes over the millennia and it isn't over yet. A change is coming and the tone of your post conveys a distinct sense of foreboding. It's well placed and if no one else replies I'd be glad to carry on via PM.

So what's wrong with Church that Millennials are no longer being drawn to it? Church wasn't the reason I left it behind whereas that seems to be the case with Millennials.

http://faithit.com/12-reasons-millennials-over-church-sam-eaton/

I want to send global, sky-writing airplanes telling the life-change that happens beneath a steeple. I want to install a police microphone on top of my car and cruise the streets screaming to the masses about the magical Utopian community of believers waiting for them just down the street.

I desperately want to feel this way about church, but I don’t. Not even a little bit. In fact, like much of my generation, I feel the complete opposite.

Turns out I identify more with Maria from The Sound of Music staring out the abbey window, longing to be free.

It seems all-too-often our churches are actually causing more damage than good, and the statistics are showing a staggering number of millennials have taken note.

According to this study (and many others like it) church attendance and impressions of the church are the lowest in recent history, and most drastic among millennials described as 22- to 35-year-olds.

Only 2 in 10 Americans under 30 believe attending a church is important or worthwhile (an all-time low).
59 percent of millennials raised in a church have dropped out.
35 percent of millennials have an anti-church stance, believing the church does more harm than good.
Millennials are the least likely age group of anyone to attend church (by far).
As I sat in our large church’s annual meeting last month, I looked around for anyone in my age bracket. It was a little like a Titanic search party…

IS ANYONE ALIVE OUT THERE? CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME?

Tuning in and out of the 90-minute state-of-the-church address, I kept wondering to myself, where are my people? And then the scarier question, why I am still here?

A deep-seated dissatisfaction has been growing in me and, despite my greatest attempts to whack-a-mole it back down, no matter what I do it continues to rise out of my wirey frame.

[To follow my publicly-chronicled church struggles, check out my other posts The How Can I Help Project and 50 Ways to Serve the Least of These.]

Despite the steep drop-off in millennials, most churches seem to be continuing on with business as usual. Sure, maybe they add a food truck here or a bowling night there, but no one seems to be reacting with any level of concern that matches these STAGGERING statistics.

Where is the task-force searching for the lost generation? Where is the introspective reflection necessary when 1/3 of a generation is ANTI-CHURCH?

The truth is no one has asked me why millennials don’t like church. Luckily, as a public school teacher, I am highly skilled at answering questions before they’re asked. It’s a gift really.

So, at the risk of being excommunicated, here is the metaphorical nailing of my own 12 theses to the wooden door of the American, Millennial-less Church.

1. Nobody’s Listening to Us

Millennials value voice and receptivity above all else. When a church forges ahead without ever asking for our input we get the message loud and clear: Nobody cares what we think. Why then, should we blindly serve an institution that we cannot change or shape?

Solution:

Create regular outlets (forums, surveys, meetings) to discover the needs of young adults both inside AND outside the church.
Invite millennials to serve on leadership teams or advisory boards where they can make a difference.
Hire a young adults pastor who has the desire and skill-set to connect with millennials.
2. We’re Sick of Hearing About Values & Mission Statements

Sweet Moses people, give it a rest.

Of course as an organization it’s important to be moving in the same direction, but that should easier for Christians than anyone because we already have a leader to follow. Jesus was insanely clear about our purpose on earth:

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:30-31)

“Love God. Love Others.” Task completed.

Why does every church need its own mission statement anyway? Aren’t we all one body of Christ, serving one God? What would happen if the entire American Church came together in our commonalities and used the same, concise mission statement?

Solution:

Stop wasting time on the religious mambo jambo and get back to the heart of the gospel. If you have to explain your mission and values to the church, it’s overly-religious and much too complicated.
We’re not impressed with the hours you brag about spending behind closed doors wrestling with Christianese words on a paper. We’re impressed with actions and service.
3. Helping the Poor Isn’t a Priority

My heart is broken for how radically self-centered and utterly American our institution has become.

Let’s clock the number of hours the average church attender spends in “church-type” activities. Bible studies, meetings, groups, social functions, book clubs, planning meetings, talking about building community, discussing a new mission statement…

Now let’s clock the number of hours spent serving the least of these. Oooooo, awkward.

If the numbers are not equal please check your Bible for better comprehension (or revisit the universal church mission statement stated above).

“If our lives do not reflect radical compassion for the poor, there is reason to wonder if Christ is in us at all.” –Radical, David Platt

Solutions:

Stop creating more Bible studies and Christian activity. Community happens best in service with a shared purpose.
Survey your members asking them what injustice or cause God has placed on their hearts. Then connect people who share similar passions. Create space for them to meet and brainstorm and then sit back and watch what God brings to life.
Create group serve dates once a month where anyone can show up and make a difference (and, oh yeah, they’ll also meet new people).
4. We’re Tired of You Blaming the Culture

From Elvis’ hips to rap music, from Footloose to “twerking,” every older generation comes to the same conclusion: The world is going to pot faster than the state of Colorado. We’re aware of the down-falls of the culture—believe it or not we are actually living in it too.

Perhaps it’s easier to focus on how terrible the world is out there than actually address the mess within.

Solution:

Put the end times rhetoric to rest and focus on real solutions and real impact in our immediate community.
Explicitly teach us how our lives should differ from the culture. (If this teaching isn’t happening in your life, check out the book Weird: Because Normal Isn’t Working by Craig Groeschel)
5. The “You Can’t Sit With Us” Affect

There is this life-changing movie all humans must see, regardless of gender. The film is of course the 2004 classic Mean Girls.

In the film, the most popular girl in school forgets to wear pink on a Wednesday (a cardinal sin), to which Gretchen Weiners screams, “YOU CAN’T SIT WITH US!”

Today, my mom said to me, “Church has always felt exclusive and ‘cliquey,’ like high school.” With sadness in her voice she continued, “and I’ve never been good at that game so I stopped playing.”

The truth is, I share her experience. As do thousands of others.

Until the church finds a way to be radically kinder and more compassionate than the world at large, we tell outsiders they’re better off on their own. And the truth is, many times they are.

Solutions:

Create authentic communities with a shared purpose centered around service.
Create and train a team of CONNECT people whose purpose is to seek out the outliers on Sunday mornings or during other events. Explicitly teach people these skills as they do not come naturally to most of the population.
Stop placing blame on individuals who struggle to get connected. For some people, especially those that are shy or struggle with anxiety, putting yourself out there even just once might be an overwhelming task. We have to find ways to bridge that gap.

I got this from Joe and have a few reservations but not many.

treason

In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's nation.
To avoid the abuses of the English law, treason was specifically defined in the United States Constitution, the only crime so defined. Article III, section 3 reads as follows:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
All Prosecuting Attorney's are prohibited from employment and it is these individuals who are committing treason. All Federal and State Courts are guilty of Treason.
Here is the main thing.
There are no lawful constitutional amendments that have been adopted or confirmed since 1791, because the amendments were written by all attorney's who were members of the BAR from England and had a title on Nobility. The bill of rights were installed in 1791 by federal employees and are null as of the date of this writing.

After the Constitution was passed, attorneys were elected by the people and make statutes and codes and not law which is the definition of Constitutional.

"Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States." The requirement of testimony of two witnesses was inherited from the British Treason Act 1695.

So you need to know the difference between Lawful and Legal

The Civil War was started to start another attempted fraud.
The 13 amendment of 1812 was ratified and passed to give attorney's a chance to flee from treason and they could say they were not citizens.
Then they hid it and made a new 13 amendment.
The amendment was unlawful because it was adopted in Congress by attorney's.
So everything after the Constitution was passed and it had attorney's is null because it was passed with attorney's in Congress.

Lawful
1.
allowed or permitted by law; not contrary to law :
a lawful enterprise.
2.
recognized or sanctioned by law; legitimate:
a lawful marriage; a lawful heir.
3.
appointed or recognized by law; legally qualified:
a lawful king.
4.
acting or living according to the law; law-abiding:
a lawful man; a lawful community.

Legal
1.
permitted by law; lawful:
Such acts are not legal.
2.
of or relating to law; connected with the law or its administration:
the legal profession.
3.
appointed, established, or authorized by law; deriving authority from law.
4.
recognized by law rather than by equity.
5.
of, relating to, or characteristic of the profession of law or of lawyers:
a legal mind.

The Attorneys working for the Government are making Federal and State statutes and codes but they are not laws.
That is what the courts go by because the attorney's wrote them.
Even at the county level what the commissioners pass and their attorney says it is legal and they make a statute out of what they passed. But it was done by an attorney and that makes it illegal.
This is a part of their act that the attorneys and judges play because the public does not know what they have done is not lawful.
Why is it unlawful? An attorney cannot work for the government because he has a title of nobility, it is in the Constitution "attorneys, prohibited from government employment without congressional consent".
Attorneys are not allowed in congress. SO any laws they passed with an attorney signing it is NULL.
Read the Constitution, it states attorneys cannot be in congress. Judges must be appointed by the congress, and they cannot hold a position of profit or they are committing treason. How many attorneys that work for the government have their own law office and practice law?
Judges that work for the government are committing treason.

All this stuff is super secret. We, the unwashed masse have no idea. The Obama Intelligence people openly lied to Congress, our elected representatives. How can we believe anything? We essentially lost our Republic when Bush opened the door to a new secret government with the Patriot Act. It has gone downhill even more then Obama took it farther. There are no open checks and balances. Just the assurance of some secret FISA court that there are still some fourth amendment protections. When we allow our government to be run by secret courts and unaccountable politicians like Clapper and Comey, we have lost the Republic. Obama is still in control. The leaks prove it.

Semper Fi