Dechurching Research
In the past 25 years, 42% of our city (metropolitan Orlando, Florida) has stopped attending church. In 2018, we were two pastors who wanted to understand and be fruitful in what we thought was our unique context. We soon learned our context wasn’t unique and that what was happening around us wasn’t as simple as media pundits and Twitter commentators suggested. We live in the most significant and fastest religious shift in U.S. history. Some 40 million adult Americans who used to attend church at least once per month now attend less than once yearly. This shift is larger than the number of conversions during the First Great Awakening, Second Great Awakening, and the totality of the Billy Graham Crusades combined. We live in the largest and fastest religious shift in U.S. history. Over the last two years, we’ve worked with respected social scientists Ryan Burge and Paul Djupe to conduct the largest and most comprehensive study of dechurching ever commissioned. In total, we heard from mor...