To the editor:

Just where does church and our recognition of God fit in our lives today? Strict recognition of God by society is a cyclical thing. If we are in a difficult time personally, we tend to seek out God in prayer. In more prosperous times, we don’t feel the need.

In the last 50 years or so, there have been many changes in our social attitudes. Historically in times of national crises, there is a return to church. The opposite happen with the COVID-19 crisis. People didn’t feel an urgency to seek God’s guidance or security. Why?

In my lifetime, I have noticed a general decline in church attendance. In a time of significant population growth, the importance of God has declined. With this decline, we see a rise in broken homes and families. We also see an increase in the number of children being raised by single parents and number of half-brothers and -sisters in a home. Parenting takes teamwork with multiple adults to supervise and train a child in the way to go.

Our Bible shows that at times like these, we tend to drift morally away from God. In the past, families tended to rely more on allowing moral issues to be learned through worship. A decline in the importance of worship brings about increased questioning of moral standards. Hence the dilemma of society today.

The vast majority of our population claims to believe in God yet have no church affiliation, much less attend regular worship. Morality issues are between the individual and God.

Now, the question is how do we inspire a return to our churches and following the sovereignty of God? We all must pause and look at ourselves and our communities and is this what we wish to live with? We have promiscuity, violence, hate and distrust of others. To change and improve, we must return to obedience to the sovereignty of God in our lives. We must show with our lives there is a better way. Failure to seek God’s guidance in the life of our country will bring about an end to the America we grew up loving.

To start a movement to improve, we all must speak all we associate with and remind them of the lessons learned growing up in Sunday school and the importance and a return to church and regular worship.

William Gerhard, Scipio