The Great Dechurching

1. America's Unprecedented Religious Shift: The Great Dechurching

About 15 percent of American adults living today (around 40 million people) have effectively stopped going to church, and most of this dechurching has happened in the past twenty-five years.

Historic decline. The United States is experiencing its largest and fastest religious shift, termed "The Great Dechurching," with 40 million adults leaving the church in the last 25 years. This phenomenon surpasses previous periods of religious growth, like the post-Civil War era, in its scale and speed, but in the opposite direction. For the first time, more US adults do not attend church than attend.

Accelerated departure. This rapid decline accelerated significantly in the 1990s, driven by factors such as the end of the Cold War (making non-Christian identity more acceptable), the polarization of the religious Right, and the pervasive influence of the internet. The internet allowed easy access to diverse worldviews and communities questioning faith, without the previous social and familial opposition.

Future implications. The rate of dechurching is so high that it will eventually slow, not because underlying issues are resolved, but because fewer people will remain churched to leave. This shift is transforming American society, moving towards a future where the "dechurched" will give way to the "unchurched"—those who never attended church at all.

2. Dechurching's Widespread Impact: Relational, Religious, and Cultural Stakes

The erosion of the religious foundation of 40 million people will have widespread reverberations.

Familial pain. Dechurching creates immense pain and tension within families, as parents and grandparents grieve their adult children's departure from faith. Research shows 68% of dechurched evangelicals attribute their parents' actions (e.g., culture war emphasis, lack of love, inability to listen) as a factor in their decision to leave.

Institutional decline. Religiously, the Great Dechurching leads to church closures outpacing new church plants, declining denominational membership (e.g., Evangelical Lutheran Church in America down 41%, Southern Baptist Convention down 15% since 2006), and significant financial losses. The 40 million dechurched represent a potential annual loss of $24.7 billion in giving to Christian churches.

Societal fracturing. Culturally, dechurching contributes to increased societal polarization, decreased trust in institutions, and thinner communities. Churches historically provided a social safety net and fostered community well-being, so their decline threatens human flourishing, connectivity, and overall societal peace.

3. Diverse Reasons for Departure: Not All Dechurched Are Alike

It quickly became clear that we can’t lump all the dechurched into the same category when it comes to the animating concerns behind their decision to stop attending.

Two main categories. The dechurched fall into two broad groups: the "casually dechurched" who drifted away without specific intent (e.g., moved, busy life, COVID-19 habits) and the "dechurched casualties" who left due to genuine pain or trauma (e.g., abuse, hypocrisy, political syncretism). This distinction is crucial for understanding their paths back.

Four evangelical profiles. Within dechurched evangelicals, four distinct profiles emerged:

• Cultural Christians (52%): Low orthodoxy, left due to social/experiential reasons, apathy, and life priorities.
• Dechurched Mainstream Evangelicals (DMEs): High orthodoxy, left due to moving or habit changes (e.g., COVID-19).
• Exvangelicals: High orthodoxy, but left due to deep pain, institutional failures, and perceived hypocrisy (e.g., sexual abuse cover-ups).
• Dechurched BIPOC: High education/income, left due to feeling they didn't fit in, lack of relevance, and parental friction.

Mainline and Catholic similarities. Dechurched Mainline Protestants and Catholics share many characteristics, often leaving due to political disagreements, perceived misogyny, or a desire for more social justice from the church. Both groups show lower orthodoxy scores than DMEs or exvangelicals.

4. Hope Amidst Decline: Many Dechurched Remain Open to Return

Fifty-one percent of the dechurched evangelicals we surveyed said they think they will one day return to church.

Orthodoxy persists. A surprising and hopeful finding is that many dechurched individuals, especially evangelicals, retain orthodox beliefs. For instance, 68% of dechurched evangelicals still believe in the Trinity, 64% in Jesus' divinity, and 61% in the Bible's reliability. This suggests a disconnect between belief and belonging/behavior, not necessarily a rejection of faith itself.

Desire for belonging. The primary reason dechurched evangelicals would return is a longing for belonging and community. They cite reasons like:

• Making new friends (28%)
• Feeling lonely (20%)
• Spouse or children wanting to go (18%, 16%)
• Missing church community (20%)
• A friend inviting them (17%)

Low-hanging fruit. For many, particularly Dechurched Mainstream Evangelicals (100% willing to return), a simple, personal invitation to a healthy church community could be enough. This group often just needs a "nudge" to overcome new Sunday rhythms or the inertia of life.

5. The Generational Handoff Crisis: Faith Fades in Young Adulthood

It is significant that in our study when we asked survey participants in what period of their life they were most religious, the period of highest religious interest was from ages 0–18 and the period of lowest religious interest was ages 18–25.

Critical transitions. The faith handoff is most often missed during three key stages: high school, college (18-25), and early professional years. Young adults often leave home with a "borrowed faith" that hasn't become their own, leading to disengagement when parental influence wanes.

Reasons for struggle:

• High school: Difficulty fitting in, lack of age-appropriate connections, busy schedules (e.g., sports), and parents deprioritizing church.
• College: Desire to explore sexuality, perceived parental intolerance, feeling faith was stifling, and finding new communities outside of church.
• Young professional: New priorities (career, leisure), lack of relevant answers from church for life struggles (e.g., depression), and new relationships with non-churched partners.

Parental influence. A significant 68% of dechurched evangelicals felt their parents played a role in their departure, often citing parents' emphasis on culture wars, lack of listening, or inability to charitably engage other viewpoints. This highlights a need for relational wisdom in intergenerational faith transmission.

6. Relational Wisdom: Key to Engaging the Dechurched

To grow in relational wisdom and relational maturity, we must possess at least six key awarenesses—of God, of self, of others, of our emotions, of how others perceive us, and of culture.

Holistic awareness. Effective engagement with the dechurched requires developing six interconnected awarenesses. God-awareness grounds us in His sovereignty, enabling confident and humble outreach. Self-awareness helps us understand our motives and communicate clearly, avoiding pushiness or timidity.

Empathetic connection. Others-awareness, the fruit of God and self-awareness, involves understanding what matters to people and how they see the world, gained through active listening and curious questions. Emotional awareness helps us gauge the emotional temperature of conversations, allowing us to speak "a word in season" with gentleness.

Cultural humility. Awareness of how others perceive us (e.g., as "jerks") allows us to disarm them through humility and confession of church failures. Cultural awareness helps us contextualize the gospel, understanding prevailing narratives and gently questioning people's assumptions, rather than capitulating to them. This culminates in a "quiet, calm curiosity" that disarms and invites genuine connection.

7. The Spiritual Formation Crisis: Information Diet vs. Gospel Truth

We are in a crisis of spiritual formation because we live in an attention economy.

Algorithm's influence. Modern society's "attention economy," driven by algorithms designed to maximize engagement through divisiveness, creates a crisis in spiritual formation. Social media and other digital platforms constantly shape our worldview, often promoting content that puts us in a cortisol state, making spiritual growth difficult.

Information overload. Individuals, whether churched or dechurched, consume vast amounts of information daily from diverse sources (social media, news, podcasts, streaming). This "information diet" often overshadows the formative influence of church-centric activities, even for those who value them highly.

Formative impact. This constant influx of algorithm-fed content normalizes thought patterns, reshapes desires, and validates hopes, forming individuals subconsciously. The challenge for the church is to help people cultivate healthier information diets, promoting content that aligns with God's vision of truth, goodness, and beauty, and fostering meta-awareness of how media influences their souls.

8. Beyond Two Chapters: Embracing the Full Gospel Narrative

Broadly speaking, the Christian faith consists of a four-chapter gospel: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Consummation.

Truncated gospel. Twentieth-century evangelicalism often focused on a "two-chapter gospel" (Fall and Redemption), emphasizing individual salvation from hell. While true, this truncated message lacks the cosmic vision of God's work in creation and recreation, making it less compelling for a modern "older-brother" culture.

Older-brother culture. The West has shifted from a "younger-brother" culture (moral laxity) to an "older-brother" culture, increasingly concerned with justice, ethics, and human flourishing (e.g., #MeToo, Black Lives Matter). A two-chapter gospel struggles to connect with these concerns, as it fails to address the systemic implications of sin and God's redemptive plan for all creation.

Four-chapter solution. A full "four-chapter gospel" (Creation, Fall, Redemption, Consummation) provides a more robust narrative that resonates with contemporary questions about goodness and beauty, not just truth. It shows how God is making all things new, offering a comprehensive vision for justice and human flourishing that can tangibly demonstrate the gospel's power.

9. Confessional and Missional: The Balanced Church Approach

Any church that has a specific doctrinal or cultural flag flying higher than the flag of Jesus will not survive.

Avoiding extremes. Churches often err by being either "confessional-only" (theologically faithful but missionally challenged) or "missional-only" (engaging but theologically shallow). The Ephesian church, for example, lost its "first love" by prioritizing right doctrine over reaching hearts, becoming insular and prideful.

Confession's role. Confessions (creeds) clarify biblical truth, providing a sure theological foundation and protecting against heresy. They unite believers across traditions on core doctrines and free them to disagree on secondary issues. A confessional church is clear about its beliefs and committed to teaching them deeply.

Mission's imperative. Being missional means actively engaging the fallen world, caring for lost and broken people, and being "sent into the world" as Jesus was. It requires listening more than speaking, understanding context, and demonstrating the gospel tangibly through love and service, not just proclamation.

Love at the intersection. At the intersection of confession and mission, love flourishes. This balance ensures that churches are both rooted in truth and passionately engaged with their communities, embodying the full gospel and avoiding the pitfalls of either insularity or cultural accommodation.

10. Embracing Exile: A Biblical Path to Flourishing

The most common state for God’s people is exile.

Normalcy of exile. For Christians in the West, particularly white Americans, the loss of societal power is a return to the historical norm of exile, not an anomaly. This state, where God's people live on the margins, is not a defeat but a design for flourishing, as seen with Adam and Eve, Abraham, Israel, and the early church.

Gospel advance. Exile often promotes the advance of the gospel by scattering believers and fostering a greater willingness to share faith, especially when social comforts are removed. It also stimulates innovation in evangelism, as seen when early Christians in Antioch began preaching to Gentiles.

Idol confrontation. Exile confronts our idols of power, forcing dependence on God rather than societal influence. It reminds us that our true hope is in Christ, not in maintaining cultural control. Like the Israelites in Babylon, we are called to seek the welfare of our cities from the margins, trusting God's hand is with us.

11. Essential Exhortations for Church Leaders

We must hold up a mirror to the church and honestly analyze what contributions we are making to the Great Dechurching, but we can’t allow the pendulum to swing too far to the other side and do whatever we can to accommodate our surrounding culture only to bring people into a community that we simply cannot call the church.

Don't be surprised by falling away. Jesus warned that the visible church would contain "weeds among the wheat." Some dechurched were never true believers, and their departure, especially as social pressures to identify as Christian diminish, reveals their true colors. Leaders must not be surprised or overreact, but understand this is part of the spiritual landscape.

Extreme responses hurt people. Leaders must avoid two extremes: passively accepting all departures without striving for purity, or becoming overly strict and suspicious, alienating genuine seekers. Both disengaged and overcontrolling approaches harm spiritual formation, as seen in families and churches.

Prioritize discipleship. The church must intentionally disciple people, especially young adults, to build a robust, personal faith that can withstand cultural shifts. This involves teaching the Bible clearly, investing in Christian education, and equipping believers to live out their faith in the world.

Embrace humility. Leaders must cultivate humility, recognizing that power shifts are normal for God's people and that wisdom can come from unexpected places, including those who have historically ministered from the margins. This posture fosters relational wisdom and removes barriers to the gospel.

Focus on Jesus. Ultimately, the church must return to the authentic Jesus of the Bible, stripping away counterfeit versions (e.g., prosperity Jesus, political Jesus). The full four-chapter gospel, deep relationships, and daily renewal in Christ are essential to address the spiritual formation crisis and effectively engage the dechurched.