I attended First United Methodist Church for the first time when they advertised a special event. I went to that event. I met someone there who regularly attends that church and is involved in organizing small groups. I was having a chat with him about the church. He mentioned that there were some differences between his church and some other churches. We then had a very interesting, instructive, and useful conversation about some of these differences. A pastor, who I'll call "Pastor T," then came by and broke up our conversation. I asked him why. He said it was because the person I was talking to was there to discuss small groups and I was taking him away from his duties. This was ridiculous. There was no one else in the room at the time who wanted to discuss anything at all with the person I was talking to, and he was having a very appropriate conversation with me. Pastor T then expressed the view that Jesus was the only appropriate topic. It became obvious that Pastor T had an unsound mind. I found his malicious, nasty behavior grossly offensive. I was then invited to attend a church luncheon two weeks later. I went to the trouble of asking Pastor T if it was o.k. if I attended, even though it was not necessary to ask him. He said it was o.k. When I arrived at the luncheon, it had been cancelled. Because of the extreme rudeness of Pastor T and the other church leaders, they hadn't even bothered to announce on their website that the luncheon had been cancelled. I was told you had to have signed up for the luncheon in advance, but nobody had told me when I was invited that I had to sign up, and no written announcement about the luncheon had said anything about signing up. Apparently, if I had signed up, I would have been notified of the cancellation. I found this behavior on the part of the church leaders extremely obnoxious in failing to warn me that unless I signed up, I wouldn't be notified if the event was cancelled, and that any such cancellation would not be posted on their website. I heard an uninspiring sermon at this church on the decline of church attendance in the US. I believe the reasons church attendance is declining include, firstly, the fact that churches like United Methodist Church hire people like Pastor T, and, secondly, that they cancel events without posting the cancellation on their websites. Also, the entire topic of the decline in church attendance is very dull and boring. Church attendance at United Methodist Church is probably declining because, thirdly, when you attend you are forced to listen to uninteresting sermons on the decline in church attendance instead of on the Bible and how to apply it in our lives. read more
