{"id":78600,"date":"2024-06-23T23:02:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-24T04:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/?p=78600"},"modified":"2024-06-24T00:24:44","modified_gmt":"2024-06-24T05:24:44","slug":"the-most-dangerous-thing-a-christian-can-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/?p=78600","title":{"rendered":"The Most Dangerous Thing a Christian Can Do"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It was one of those little pieces of information that helped clarify so much in my mind, that described through data what I had seen with my own eyes and experienced in my own ministry. It is a piece of information we all ought to be aware of and one we all ought to consider. It warns us that one of the most innocent things a Christian does may also be one of the most dangerous.<\/p>\n

Ryan Burge and Paul Djupe spent two years conducting a large and comprehensive study of people who have \u201cdechurched\u201d\u2014who once faithfully attended church but now no longer do. The results were published in The Great Dechurching<\/a><\/em> and were widely reported in a host of media outlets. In one article, the authors list some common misconceptions about dechurching, and it was the very first one that especially captured my attention.<\/p>\n

The misconception is this: People leave primarily because of negative experiences with the church. Our assumption as we consider people who have left the faith is that they had a negative experience within the church\u2014that they observed or even faced abuse, or that they grew tired of scandals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was one of those little pieces of information that helped clarify so much in my mind, that described through data what I had seen with my own eyes and experienced in my own ministry. It is a piece of information we all ought to be aware of and one we all ought to consider. It warns us that one of the most innocent things a Christian does may also be one of the most dangerous.See AlsoA La Carte (May 29)A La Carte (January 3)A La Carte (November 1)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":78612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[31],"tags":[303],"class_list":["post-78600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tim-challies","tag-articles","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/biblicalcounselor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/lightstock_672897_medium_tim_challies-1-1.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78600"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78613,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78600\/revisions\/78613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/78612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}