I had a conversation last year with a family member that is making its way into nearly all conversations with the churches I work with.

My brother-in-law’s Grandmother is a regular part of our family. We see her at least weekly. I enjoy it because I have no one left in my family of her generation. She is 87 and is a ball.

Last year, we were talking about how she felt the world was becoming crazy (because it is) and she kept referencing how no one is part of church anymore (she isn’t wrong). She kept referencing the formation of the United States as a religious nation and how it needs to return to what it was like back then.

In the conversation, I mentioned some of the stats about American religious participation I had learned from both Rodney Stark and Ryan Burge.

In Stark’s book The Churching of America, he writes about American religious life from the colonial period to the early 2000’s. One of the things Stark mentions is how in the colonial period, American religious participation was at it’s lowest. Stark estimates roughly 17% was part of a church in 1776.

I shared with her that information and she gave me an astonished look.

If you were part of a local church in the mid-20th century, you were part of the greatest statistical anomaly of attendance in the American Church

I then asked her, do you know when most Americans were part of a local church?

It was in the 1950’s - 1980's.

Her adolescence was in the 1950s and she started raising children in the 1960's - 1970's. That formative time is when many people begin to form their worldview. I read earlier this year about this formative time between the ages of 10-30 when we really establish our worldview.

Stark estimates 59% was part of a church in 1952.

I grew up active in church during the 1980’s and 1990’s. Yes, I am a pastor's kid, but our life revolved around our church, much like all of my early friends. I think I was in High School before I had friends who weren’t active in a local congregation. This was part of that 59-62% from 1950 - 1980.

When I work with local churches as a congregational developer I run a pretty deep set of demographics, including estimated religious participation. One of the primary workshops I lead is an evangelism workshop, focused on a specific local congregation. Part of the information I share in that workshop is an estimated religious participation number in their community.

I’ve sculpted the flow to go like this.

1. Quick history on evangelism and conversion, showing our current experience of a stranger on a stage or knocking at the door is actually not how we’ve always done it. I use Stark’s research on Early Church Evangelism happening in relational networks as the “typical” way the Church has converted people.
2. I then ask make this statement, because I hear it in one on one conversations. ”But Chad, everyone I know is already part of a local church!”
3. I then show the estimate of the population who is active in a local church. It is typically around 30%.

Most of these churches are full of people 65 years or older. Sometimes they have a hard time believing this.

Here is where Ryan Burge’s information on religious participation amongst generations comes in. Burge is one of the people I try to pay 100% attention to. He is the G.O.A.T of religious research for church leaders.

In short, the older someone is, the more likely it is for a greater amount of their age group to be part of a local church or have a faith belief system. When older congregations feel like their whole town is already part of a local church, I begin sharing Burge’s information with them. I especially talk about the idea that around 30% of their mission field population has “no religious belief” (ie the nones).

Essentially, the younger someone is, the greater likelihood they are a “none”.

Age also plays a small part in the frequency of religious attendance, although the range is smaller.

Another interesting behavior is those with no religious belief used to attend church. The rate of non-attendance among the “nones” has doubled in the past 30 years.

So what does an older, normal-sized congregation do?

I usually encourage them to start reaching out to the middle-aged in their community. These Gen X’ers are the beginning of the fall-off in religious participation and belief, but not as distant as Gen Z. There are more points of similarity between people in their mid-40s to early 60s for these congregations of folks in their 70s. They also already have existing relationships with these people and the power of relational evangelism is strong. There are already trusting relationships present.

That’s the biggest difference.

To wrap this all up, generational experience matters. If a church is at a point of struggling, this can help ease anxiety. Many times, I've found churches are unaware the problems they face aren't a result of them being ineffective, but they are dealing with the same systemic issues almost every other normal-sized church faces.

I've found data to be a helpful way to alleviate this anxiety.

Chad
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Is My Church Healthy? Many of you know this, but I've got my first book coming out in a few weeks. It is all about my Vitality Matrix and how congregations can use it to understand stability.