The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back?

The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? by Jim Davis, Michael Graham and Ryan P. Burge

Church attendance has fallen greatly in the past few decades, evn in places like the southeastern Bible Belt. This book looks at why it has happened and proposes some solutions for church leaders to bring the "de-churched" back into the fold. The primary focus is on dechurched protestants, though Catholics get a bit of coverage. Dechurched are defined as people that had once attended church regularly, but now attend less than once per year. They have a multitude of reasons for not attending. Most attended as children. The young adult time period is the most common time to stop attending. Some never find a church in a new community. Some find church less convenient. Others have had traumatic events that have led them to leave the church.

Recent events have led to increased dechurching. It has picked up with the spread of the internet. It is now possible to join a social community online without meeting people in person. It is also easy to find people that have your exact beliefs with no more need to join a general population in a church. The Covid-19 pandemic brought about online church services. Many enjoyed the convenience of staying at home and never went back to church in person. Many of these people that have stopped attending church claim to remain strong in their faith. They also tend to maintain the political beliefs associated with the Christian right and may return to church.

The vocal political involvement of churches also led to people that did not share the same political leanings to leave church. They may still claim a faith in Christ, but do not like the politicization of Christianity. 

There are also people that left church due to traumatic events or church member malfescene. These people are not likely to return.

The authors identify a balanced approach needed to return people to the fold. Church members must reach out and show a relationship. Those with strong ties are more likely to stay in the fold. It is also important that churches are complete. They can't be focussed on entertaining without the faith in Christ. They also can't be too focussed on doctrine to the detriment of people's needs. 

It is also interesting to read that church attendance has gone through many peaks and valleys in the US. During early history, it was fairly low. There were spurts of increased attendance at the Great Awakening, and then a bigger jump around the Civil War. It has remained relatively constant since the great depression until starting to fall off in the 1990s. I wonder how much of a role demographics play in this?