"I added it up. That year our church conducted 104 regularly scheduled worship services, 7 special services, some 250 adult classes, 600 committee meetings and 1,000 small-group meetings and ran through a $750,000 budget to produce exactly zero new adult followers of Jesus Christ. We gathered. We worshiped. We loved each other. But we produced no crop. Our church was a contraption worthy of Rube Goldberg: lots of sound, motion, fury to produce a tiny amount of fruit. . . How do we conceal this scandalous lack of productivity? Some clever churches have simply changed the definition of crop. Churches now judge success by the standards of a family reunion. How many people came and did everyone get along?"
comments made by Steve and Marilyn Hill (stevehill@harvest-now.com), as they quoted from the book, Why Men hate Going To Church: poached from David A on www.edgenet.org.nz
davidjohn
Pro 
I believe it is fundamentalism which switches people off; no actually drives them away. The bible was written by a great many authors and there have been interpolations and additions by those who copied the text. When intelligent people go to church and listen to creation as per Genesis, or descriptions of angels and archangels and of Satan we feel like laughing. There is wonderful truths in the Bible but it all requires careful interpretation which slowly evolves. An example is a biblical quote and I hope I have got it right from memory ' Slaves obey your masters '. Now we accept slavery is totally utterly wrong. God is not a clever old man, an architect of the Universe, a telephone answering machine [ prayers ] but I like to think God the Ground of our being or simply ' God is love '. Look at George Bush and Tony Blair and ask why they chose war and killing and where they got their instructions from Jesus or God .