In these recent years, the church as a whole has seen a decline in membership, and attendance. We will examine this major change in the fabric of what founded our country and explored ways to resolve the issue.             Church attendance is declining in America! The people without religion are rising in number, and even us Christians are faltering by not attending worship on a regular basis. Just a decade or two ago, you would attend church three times a week, 52 weeks a year. Even when you traveled you would find a local congregation to worship with. Sunday mornings, people did not skip church, they did not sleep in. They got up and got ready hopped in their Dodge and headed to their local church. The entire country would in essence shut down on Sunday. I can remember having to get gas on Saturday evening because no gas station would be open on Sunday. No local sports, or plays, or insert extracurricular activity here ever took place on Sunday that was unthinkable.             So as my generation (Generation X) began the real problem of church attendance. We would be ok missing a Sunday if we had a long work week. After all, Sunday is a day of rest right? Now my children the Millennials and even the older iGen, become to even more casual about the church.  In an interview conducted by David Murrow, he found some alarming statistics from a large church in Arizona. What he found was that “young families attended church an average of 1.6 times per month out of a possible 4.3. Also, only 20% of their members attend at least three times a month. Finally, only 4 percent are “full attenders” who are in the pews at least 48 weeks a year.” (Murrow, 2016)             The question remains why the decrease? I blame society as a whole, and the seeking of the almighty dollar. As mentioned earlier there used to be a time when nothing was open on Sunday, and if it was, it did not open until the afternoon. Now everything is open from the fast food joint, to the shopping centers. Everyone started competing for your dollar and forgetting all about Church and Christ. Once that began to happen, we started seeing youth sports scheduling games and practices on Sunday mornings, and us parents kowtow to it like the worshippers of Baal. We have made false idols on so many levels, and we don’t even see it happening or recognize it.             How do we solve this problem? I do not have a solid answer to this, but here are my views on it as well as some input from Cary Nieuwhof (Blogger) (Nieuwhof, 2015). Number one goes along with my theory of the absence of The Great Commission, we assume people are going to church, but how often do we just invite someone to come with us? Change the services make them more appealing if your service is 2 Hymns, offering, Hymn, scripture reading, 15-minute message, benediction out the door…. Then there may be the reason your church is losing numbers. People want to be energized about worship, they want to feel apart, they need multiple senses exposed to the worship experience.  Provide aftercare, don’t expect once the congregants leave the building they are going to read Bible faithfully every day, a vast number only see God on Sunday morning. Create an aftercare plan; Bible studies through the week, accountability groups. Pastors, this one is to you teach a series, do three – six weeks about one subject or story from the Bible, leaving people wanting to come back for more. This is where my church fails, as we have four pastors, with different preaching styles, and we preach in a rotation. I have tried to get all of us on the same page, and even all do a sermon from one passage, but in our way and interpretation. I digress... Assign homework, ok next week we will be discussing the Romans Road to Salvation, it is up to you to tell me what this is. People like to be challenged and engaged.             The most important thing about growing our numbers back is outreach. Churches are so inward focused it would seem, they forget about their town, their community, and even their neighbors. We need to reach out to people in our community, let the community see us making a difference in the community, rather through litter pick up, or to providing cold water on a hot day to random people. Let the community know about your programming, and how they can get involved. Encourage them to visit, and make sure they know there is free child care. Then when they get there to give them a true worship experience, not a stretch out and morning yawn trying to stay awake in the pew.             So, in conclusion, it would seem to me that the decline in attendance is mostly due to the greed of money and time. The solution is to get involved and engage people in the community as /well as be willing to bend and think outside of the box when it comes to worship.   Bibliography Murrow, D. (2016, March 7). Why is Church Attendance Declining Even Among Committed Christians? Retrieved from Church for Men: http://sixseeds.patheos.com/churchformen/2016/03/why-is-church-attendance-declining-even-among-christians/ Nieuwhof, C. (2015, April 6). 10 Simple Changes You Can Make To Help Boost Weekend Church Attendance. Retrieved from Cary Nieuwhof: http://careynieuwhof.com/10-simple-changes-you-can-make-to-help-boost-weekend-church-attendance/