Why do you stay a member? Do you have any influence to ditch that rabbi when his current contract expires?
Totally confused by the choices. How can you change denominations but not congregation? What is a grouping?
Ah, I didn’t see these before, since polls don’t show on tapatalk
Maybe it would have been better to say:
I have never changed my place of worship
I have changed congregations, but returned to the first one I worshipped at
I am in the same denomination, but a different congregation
I’ve changed denominations
I was religious but have dropped out
I never have been religious
I’d also be curious whether people changed congregation due to moving, or due to choosing a different congregation.
Left the Methodists in the late 1960’s at age 10 or so after wrestling with doubts for about 2 years.
Joined the Unitarian Universalists in the mid 1980’s to enjoy the benefits of a liberal, mostly agnostic congregation. Changed congregations once in the mid 90’s when we moved.
I was raised Catholic. Changed churches when I was 6 and my sister was a baby. I actually remember the incident that caused my stepfather to want to move: There was a baby in the congregation that was screaming and wailing, and instead of taking the kid to the mother’s room, where kids can scream and wail and crawl around and whatever (and where my stepfather had taken us whenever my sister was acting up), the mom decided to just hang out in the pews. The priest spoke up in a break in the service to mention that it might be easier for everyone to understand the speaker if the mom would take her infant to the mother’s room and celebrate mass there. Which, at the age of six, I found eminently reasonable, but this was apparently such an affront to God that my stepfather decided that was the last service there we’d ever attend unless someone died or got married there.
The next church was much farther away, but in an effort to be a good little Christian, I was an altar boy and went to CCD (sunday school for Catholics) and the whole nine yards for another eight years. At which point I decided the whole thing was silly, asked my pastor if I could stop going as I no longer believed in a god, and he wished me well and told me I was welcome back if I ever changed my mind.
My parents still go to that church, afaik, but I haven’t been to a service outside of weddings and funerals since.
Growing up, we attended whatever Protestant service the base chaplain was using. I was not really interested in religion except for the historical components, and I stopped going when I went off to school. I have been invited to various weddings and funerals over the years but I don’t know what particular faith they were.
I was baptized in the same ELCA church my mom grew up in. The church has been on the same North Minneapolis corner since 1893, my family have been members since 1930. The vast majority of members are grandchildren/great-grandchildren of original founders.
I am no longer a believer, but go for the community instead. These people have known me since my parents brought me home at 6 weeks old. They have been honorary grandparents to my daughter since she was born.
I pretty much feel comfortable anywhere Protestant. In California, I grew up in a non-denom/Evangelical church, then switched to a Swedish Baptist. In the various Washington places I’ve lived: Foursquare, Presbyterian, General Baptist.
Some of those changes were purely geographic moves. Others were a response to changes in the church culture. For example, the Foursquare church was doing really well at growing a youth ministry. After three years there, people over 25 went from 3/4 to 1/4 of the congregation as the high school and college-aged groups grew. I was/am very happy for their success, but it was no longer a good fit for me and my wife.
I was raised Southern Baptist (4 different churches over about 40 years) but became more and more disappointed with the leadership until I finally left the denomination. Local SB churches are self-governed and don’t have to follow the lead of the Southern Baptist Convention, but the SBC, IMHO, has so tainted the image of the denomination that it is a hindrance. I now attend a non-denominational Christian church.
I think there’s something of a Protestant orientation to this poll. I was a Catholic and we really didn’t focus too much on congregations. It was expected you would attend mass every week but there was not a serious push for you to attend mass at your local church. Any mass performed in any Catholic Church was considered to be equivalent.
When I become Christian (was raised Muslim and then spent 10 years as an atheist), it was through a Pentecostal Church. I attended there for a while, was baptized there, etc., but never became a member. And then I joined an ELCA congregation after accepting an invite by some work friends (I fell in love with liturgy, what can I say). It’d likely be awkward if I switched denominations in the next 2 years as I just got elected to the Synod Council… so I guess I’m in it for the near future (though I tend to love the Lutheran Church’s emphasis on God’s grace) ;).
Raised in Conservative synagogues, but have moved too much to still be in the same one I started at. My parents, however, returned to that congregation (though it had moved to a different location) after my dad retired and they moved back to the Philly area in the late 90s.
After spending my 20s more or less ignoring Judaism, my wife and I joined the Conservative shul here in Boulder shortly after we arrived in 1994. Been there ever since, and both our kids have been on the membership rolls as part of our family since they were born (our elder is in college).
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Hey, tumbleddown, if you’re ever in Boulder, come to our shul (this invitation goes for any other Dopers of Jewish inclination). The rabbi’s Yom Kippur sermon this year was about inclusion (e.g. of LGBT members and people with disabilities), and we have always been a completely egalitarian congregation.
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Local First Baptist probably won’t decide to up and become Mennonites, no, but they can decide to leave the Southern Baptist Convention and hook up with another Baptist body, just to pick one example. Some rather liberal (for Baptist) churches in Altanta have done so - although to be fair, they were both expelled from the Georgia Baptist Convention (for welcoming LGBT members) first: one is now affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the other with the American Baptist Churches.
Congregational autonomy is a big part of Baptist history and culture - it’s why the Southern Baptists are a convention and not a church - so it’s easier for a Baptist congregation to switch denominations than, say, an Episcopalian one. But nevertheless, someone could in fact switch denominations while staying with a congregation.
Grew up Catholic, got all the usual sacraments, even was an altar boy, but my faith fizzled out some time between first communion and confirmation. Funnily, mainly out of sloth and in order to avoid family feuds, I remained to be an altar boy until seventeen, when I served my last mass, never to return to church again other than for weddings and funerals.
You don’t have a category to really fit me: changed denominations, then changed congregations, then quit.
Born/raised catholic. Never really made sense to me. Stopped attending as soon as no longer living at home.
Lengthy studies reinforced my atheism.
Married in a Lutheran church - my atheist wife’s childhood denom.
When kids were young, started attending UU, largely for RE.
Changed to a new UU church when 1st one became less Humanist.
With kids out of house, and especially after ,minister left 2d church, decided we preferred cleaning house and going to the movies on Sunday mornings.
We changed denominations every time we moved as a kid. Went from non-denominational to Nazarene, to Episcopal, to non-denominational, to Assemblies of God, as an adult made one change from Assemblies of God to Southern Baptist.
I’ve changed my place of worship any number of times – every time I’ve moved.
But I’ve never changed my denomination – born and raised Catholic, still am.
Catholics don’t (or aren’t supposed to, anyway) go congregation-shopping. We’re supposed to worship in the parish that serves the area in which we live.
I know that some Catholics do congregation-shop. Latin Massers, especially, but also some on the liberal end of the Catholic spectrum.
Parenthetically, the “liberal/conservative” thing doesn’t really apply to Catholicism, and I think the terms are almost always misused.
I’ve had two home churches, both in the same denomination. While we did change when we moved, our first church was not actually close by. However, it was halfway between where my mom and dad grew up, so I suspect that was the reason for choosing it.
When we moved, we had a church not 5 minutes away. It also had a much better youth program, focused on music, which was a big deal for me. We came in right as they had renovated and added a new sanctuary, but there were a lot of people there that had been there since before the previous renovation, and a few before they had that particular building and instead met in some small shop on Sundays (when they were closed).
My wife and I (both Catholic) have very different ideas about our faith.
When I was growing up, I went to the Catholic parish on my block, and neither I nor anyone in my family ever thought about shopping for a new one.
When I moved to Texas, I started going to the Catholic Church that was the shortest drive from my home. From time to time, I visited other Catholic churches, but generally stayed with the closest parish.
After we got married, I found that my wife and her family were very much “church shoppers” who went to the parishes where their favorite liberal priests were pastors. And we’ve generally gone to whichever parish she prefers, since it’s not nearly as important to me where we go (to me, the Eucharist is the Eucharist, regardless of whether the pastor is an elderly commie pinko).
RE stands for Religious Education, right?