Do your neighbors go to church? If not, do you know why? Their reasons are probably not the ones you’d expect. New research reveals why people leave churches and how to encourage someone to come back to church. The e-mail subject line simply read “uh-oh.” Hesitant to open the message from his friend Justin, Erik reluctantly clicked to see only a link. Again, he clicked. Up popped an article on a popular news Web site about yet another controversy in the evangelical Church.
Erik wasn’t angry. In fact, he was well acquainted with his friend’s cynicism about the Church. Quickly, he typed a pithy response: “And what are you going to do about it?!”
But before he hit “send,” a nagging feeling in his gut suggested that his clever reply wasn’t the best response. Instead, he took the high road and once again ignored his friend’s quips.
Justin is like many people. While he once faithfully attended a local church, he no longer goes. He claims he’s a Christian, disillusioned by the problems he’s seen in his local church and other churches. He hasn’t darkened the door of a sanctuary in several years.
How to Encourage Someone to Come Back to Church
A few years ago LifeWay Research conducted a survey of formerly churched adults in America, hoping to uncover certain trends about the de-churched. While the results gave a great deal of insight into the minds of the formerly churched and why they left, they also revealed some common themes how to encourage someone to come back to church. Our findings were cause for both worry and encouragement.
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Most of us know someone like Justin who no longer attends church. And it’s no surprise that the U.S. Church is in a general state of decline. The magnitude of the decline, however, is staggering. Of the 300 million people in the United States, fewer than 20% regularly attend church. And our research suggests that close to 7.9 million people may be leaving churches annually. Crunch the numbers, and you realize that our churches are probably seeing more than 150,000 people walk away each week!
Why did they leave?
The overwhelming numbers of this exodus motivated us to discover the reasons behind it. Our research revealed several common themes as to why such a sizable segment of the local church body is choosing the exit door.
1. Change in life situation
The number one reason for leaving church is a life change that prompted people to stop attending worship. In fact, almost 60% of de-churched people said that some adjustment to their lives is the primary reason why they no longer attend church.
Specifically, one-third of the formerly churched believe they are simply too busy for church. To them, life changes—often family or home needs—are as important or more important than attending a local church. Several people reported that family responsibilities were causing them to feel too busy to attend church. And women (64%) are more likely than men (51%) to feel this increased pressure from home responsibilities.
One of the more surprising results about the formerly churched was the tendency to blame a physical move away from their home church as a reason for not returning to any church. About 28% of those reporting lifestyle changes said that a move to a new location caused them to stay away from the Church. Such a reason for leaving the Church demonstrates a great need for more outwardly focused churches. When a person or family moves to a new place and feels no motivation to join another church, it’s up to congregations within that community to learn how to encourage someone to come back to church.
2. Disenchantment with the church
Like Justin, a number of the de-churched claim they’re disenchanted with the current state of their church. And 37% say this disillusionment is one of the primary reasons for leaving. Perhaps even more surprising than this percentage are the reasons for their cynicism. One major factor is their view of the pastor. They perceive the pastor to be judgmental, insincere, and lacking good preaching abilities.
It’s interesting to note that only 15% of those who feel displeasure with the church say it’s due to a moral or ethical failure of the church leadership. While the local and national press often have a field day with moral breakdowns of pastors, that’s not a major contributing factor to people deciding to leave the Church.
3. The unloving church
Not only is the pastor a contributing factor to discontentment within the church, the way the formerly churched perceived the people within the church also motivated their leaving. Of the formerly churched who expressed dissatisfaction with those in the church, 45% said the other members were judgmental and hypocritical.
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In 1 Cor. 1:10, the Apostle Paul urged the church to preserve unity, having “no divisions” within the body. Our research shows that unity is key in the success of a church maintaining a healthy percentage of its members. If church members hold grudges against each other and don’t seek to sustain harmony within the body, people will leave. In fact, of those who said the church is unloving, many left because they didn’t believe God was at work within it. Clearly, for God to use a local body for His glory, it must keep a balance of unity and love.
4. Not Christians
One of the biggest mission fields may be the people sitting in your church every week. While no one will ever know exactly how many attending worship are believers, many are leaving the Church because they were never Christians in the first place. Our survey found that about a quarter of people leaving the Church expressed a change in beliefs or simply lost interest in religion. Of that group of people, 62% stated that they had stopped believing in organized religion altogether.
Don’t miss the enormity of this issue. Not only are people leaving the Church, but many are coming in and out your doors without meeting Christ. Inevitably, some will simply refuse to accept Christ no matter how evangelistically healthy a church becomes. But a large group of people, possibly tens of thousands who could be reached for Christ, are leaving the Church.
