Is Your Congregation “Dechurching”?
| Mark 13:1-8
People are leaving church at an alarming rate. Does it mean they are no longer Christian, or is there something else going on?
About 15% of Americans are “dechurched.”
This does not mean they are not Christian. It does not mean they have lost their faith or have been kicked out of church. No, it means that they used to attend a service of worship at least once a month, and now they attend less than once a year.
They are the dechurched, and their number is huge: More than 40 million Americans.
Seats are empty in churches across the country, in large part because of this exodus. Pastors Jim Davis and Michael Graham explore the trend in a book called The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? They write, “More people have left the church in the last 25 years than all the new people who became Christians from the First Great Awakening, Second Great Awakening and Billy Graham crusades combined.”
Look around, and you can see it. The trend has impacted every congregation, hitting every age category, from evangelicals to...
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