The Great Dechurching

The kind of cultural Christianity we now see often keeps everything about the Religious Right except the religion. These people aren’t in Sunday school, but they might post Bible verses on Facebook (or quote them on TikTok).

Our sense is that DMEs are mainly people who just need a few nudges to come back to church. We have had a number of people in our own lives who have started coming back to church with just a single invitation.

Both need to see a gospel that isn’t just true but is also good and beautiful.

The more we enter exile, the greater the need in the church for true discipleship.

This is one parallel between the type of exile we see in Acts and the more extreme exile described in the Old Testament. Exile for both the early church and Israel did not destroy their faith but created a type of necessary creative stimulus for the faith to flourish in a new, albeit challenging, context.

exile

it became clear that anxiety, depression, loneliness, and suicidal thoughts were major factors in their lives.

among those who say they are “nothing in particular” when it comes to their religious belonging, a third still say religion is “somewhat” or “very important” to them. They left the religious label behind but not their belief.

If all a church is good for is drawing people together as a community, why not do that with something more fun, like playing on a team or getting together with friends at a bar? If people can experience essentially the same feeling of community in these other places, why would we be surprised when people leave the church for those other groups?