The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? is a rigorously researched book that’s getting a lot of attention right now and says we’re at a crossroads: One path is to keep “fighting for power and influence in society.” The other is to “embrace our position as exiles, exercising our influence from the margins of power instead of its seat.” (236-237)
As one who just finished serving six and a half years at the center of the pro-life movement, taking a stand against Christian nationalism and the distorted Jesus that goes with a “fighting for power” perspective, I’m grateful for a book that endorses a different path. As the authors state: “The goal isn’t to make us a Christian nation but to see how Christians impact the culture we live in.” (20)
Whether you’ve been called to strengthen an existing church or, like me, plant a new one using “new wineskins,” I pray what I’ve summarized below draws us all closer to God and others in ways that bring greater “flourishing, connectivity, cohesiveness, and overall shalom.” (20)
Fresh Stats:
- “About 40 million adults in America today used to go to church but no longer do, which accounts for around 16 percent of our adult population. For the first time in the eight decades that Gallup has tracked American religious membership, more adults in the United States do not attend church than attend church. This is not a gradual shift; it is a jolting one.” (3)
- “More people have left the church in the last twenty-five years than all the new people who became Christians from the First Great Awakening, Second Great Awakening, and Billy Graham crusades combined. Adding to the alarm is the fact that this phenomenon has rapidly increased since the mid-1990’s.” (5)
- “68 percent of dechurched evangelicals said their parents played a role in that decision.” (9)
- “From World War II all the way to the mid-1990s, church membership among adults was nearly always above 70 percent. The precipitous decline occurred across all religious traditions and, as we’ve already stated, began to pick up steam in the mid-1990s. Membership has dropped a third across all religious traditions over the last twenty-five years. This invariably has caused more churches to close and made it more challenging to plant new churches.” (11)
- “The vast majority of the country’s congregations are small. 70% of these faith communities have 100 or fewer weekly attendees. Only 10% of them have more than 250 in weekly services… However, 70 percent of all US church attenders go to churches that have 250 or more people.” (12)
- “In the Protestant tradition, Presbyterians lead the dechurching, losing about 45 percent over the last twenty-five years. This is largely due to dechurching in the mainline Presbyterian Church (PCUSA).” (22)
- “28 percent of the dechurched evangelicals we surveyed believe that the United States should be declared a Christian nation and that the success of the United States is God’s plan for the world. Let that sink in a bit. More than one quarter of the dechurched evangelicals in our survey believe the United States should be declared a Christian nation and no longer attend church… It does not seem a stretch to conclude that this group has a higher commitment to God’s work in the political realm [or what they perceive as God’s work] than God’s work in the church.” (33)
- “35 million youth raised in families that call themselves Christian will say they are not by 2050.” (34)
Reasons for Hope:
- “Opportunities abound in parenting, college ministry, racial equity, community mental health, healthy institutions, sound doctrine, and simply displaying the fruit of the spirit in our lives. The path forward is not easy but it is simple. The marriage of Christianity with American values has provided some good things that we want to be thankful for. We have had religious freedom, money, and technology to export the gospel to the world, biblical teaching at our fingertips, and seminaries to train future leaders. We would be naïve and ungrateful not to acknowledge these blessings. But this marriage has hindered us in other ways. It has created idols of freedom not promised to us in the Bible. It has produced celebrity pastors whose megachurches outgrow their character. It has produced unholy bedfellows with political parties requiring the church to compromise on basic ethical issues and allowing the polarization of our national politics to fracture our churches.” (237)
- “When we focused on why … people left the church and how they thought they would come back, the answer was simple: belonging.” (28) “When asked how willing they would be to go back to church, 51 percent said they are either somewhat willing or very willing—51 percent!” (28) “The main takeaway here is that many dechurched evangelicals simply need a friend to invite them to church.” (28)
- “Many of the unchurched people we know left the church without any leaders at their church following up with them or even realizing they were gone. The call of those in church leadership is clear: shepherd the flock. It’s hard to imagine that the apostle Paul or any other New Testament authors could have had any category for pastors who do not know their people. We cannot shepherd people we do not know. We cannot address needs we are not aware of. Some of this shepherding happens in a sermon, but most of it happens through relational discipleship.” (233-234)