I read this article yesterday. It’s sad, really.<\/p>\n
Years ago, I was a Sunday school teacher. Attended church every week. Read the King James Bible for fun. Believed as much as I could, as sincerely as I could.<\/p>\n
Then I moved to Portland, an unchurched city in one of the nation’s least religious states, and joined the ranks of people who don’t regularly attend services and barely know where to start. I don’t miss it much…<\/p>\n
Suddenly, the blessed freedom of living in an unchurched city feels more like a void.<\/p>\n
[…]<\/p>\n
The church habit wobbled over time and fell apart completely upon moving to Portland. It’s simply not part of the dominant culture here: Fewer than one-third of Oregon residents go to church on a weekly basis, which puts Oregon at about 43rd in the nation for church attendance, according to Gallup polling. More than 40 percent of Portland residents say they haven’t been to church in at least six months.<\/p>\n
That makes Portland one of the top three “least churched” cities in America, ranking only behind San Francisco and Portland, Maine. I’ve managed to fit in just fine. <\/p>\n
Though Oregon ranks as one of the nation’s least religious states, more than half the people who live here say that religion is an important part of their daily lives.<\/p>\n
Based on national data about Easter habits, I’d also guess that somewhere near half of Portland residents will attend church this Sunday. Even if our church membership rates are low, fully 71 percent of Portlanders self-identify as Christians, according to national market research.<\/p>\n
[…]<\/p>\n
People go for different reasons. In my case…there is the vague desire for spiritual renewal, for quiet meditation time, for a small connection to a better place.<\/p>\n
None of these things can be found in a single day. Not even on Easter.<\/p>\n
Source:<\/i> Faith and Portland: On Easter Sunday, adrift in an unchurched city<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Those last two statements conclude the article so well.<\/p>\n
May her “vague desire for spiritual renewal” flame up into something passionate which she finds fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the Redeemer whose resurrection we remember today.<\/p>\n
Surrender your freedom to Him. Let Him fill the void in your life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I read this article yesterday. It’s sad, really. Years ago, I was a Sunday school teacher. Attended church every week. Read the King James Bible for fun. Believed as much as I could, as sincerely as I could. Then I moved to Portland, an unchurched city in one of the nation’s least religious states, and … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,12,20],"tags":[686,24],"class_list":["post-2121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity-101","category-lessons-for-living","category-youve-been-warned","tag-faith","tag-oregon"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prJUJ-yd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}