Having said that, I think church should be entertaining, dramatic, exciting, and beautiful.

Why do we do it, what is it's purpose?

" but when half of the family are missing, how Biblical is it then and
how much of an idol.

It kind of throws things off kilter when the most popular Methodist blog
takes a break!

Until the rash showed up on my side, I thought "shingles" was an old
folks disease. Why would an all-powerful and perfect God care whether a
bunch of sinful, self-willed humans worshipped Him?

I think an important question to ask is: How do we want these youth to
think about attending church in 10 years? Yes, that's exactly what I'm
suggesting.

You wrote: Comment Shane, as some others have noted, my resistance to
one of your suggestions is that gathering for worship should never be
made "optional" for Christians. We also want to hear all about it. at
least not with writing.

that being said I have seen this problem tackled a couple different
ways.

Of course it helps when the power of God is present in an obvious way.
That's part of the covenant!

I'll say a prayer for you, man. And I suppose the social aspect is why
this institution is still highly anticipated by so many people.

However, I have been popping in and out of different topics and am
impressed. And for me, that means I need to stay focused on Jesus
instead of on the qualities of a sermon or the music program.

Instead of beating our heads against the wall trying to figure out how
WE can get to THEM, how about letting them come up with some suggestions
and solutions on their own and WE listen. They reinforce the idea that
worshiping God is optional, and to me that is a dangerous path to
walk.

I'm going to be taking it easy for a couple of days at least, so I'll
probably keep my laptop near the couch and write a little here and
there.