Earlier this week the Gallup organization reported that for the first time in their eight decades of reporting less than 50% of Americans have membership in a church of any kind. This latest reality continues the steep downward trend in American religiosity of the last several decades. Consider some of the following statistics from the report:

  • In 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque, down from 50% in 2018 and 70% in 1999.
  • U.S. church membership was 73% when Gallup first measured it in 1937
  • Over the past two decades, the percentage of Americans who do not identify with any religion has grown from 8% in 1998-2000 to 13% in 2008-2010 and 21% over the past three years
  • Between 1998 and 2000, an average of 73% of religious Americans belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque. Over the past three years, the average has fallen to 60%.
  • Church membership is strongly correlated with age, as 66% of traditionalists — U.S. adults born before 1946 — belong to a church, compared with 58% of baby boomers, 50% of those in Generation X and 36% of millennials.

The bottom line is that the number of both non-churched and de-churched Americans appear to be rising rapidly. The largest growing religious demographic continues to be the “nones,” those with no religious affiliation. Further, given the fact that the younger generation of Americans are significantly less religious than older generations, this trend appears very likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

What does this all of this mean for local churches seeking to bring the Gospel to bear in their respective communities and cities? While much could be said, in what follows I offer three implications for church ministry as we seek to do advance the Kingdom of God in 21st century America.

First, the church can no longer be content to simply re-shuffle Christians and rely on transfer growth for sustainability.

This has never been a healthy mindset of course, but back in 1937 when 73% of Americans belonged to churches (and much higher in some parts of the country like the South), it is understandable how churches could have assumed that they would remain vibrant and growing merely through transfer growth. When everyone was at least culturally Christian, churches could more or less expect that they could sustain and even grow their ministry without any actual evangelistic impact in the community. One of the realities a report like this reminds us of is that those days are over, and honestly that is not a bad thing. For too long we have tried to build and sustain churches through transfer growth alone, competing with other churches for the smaller and smaller number of committed Christians in a community. But transfer growth is drying up, and indeed has dried up in some of our larger coastal cities. If we sit back and wait for those who already believe to walk in our doors, we will find many churches shutting their doors over the next decade as the number of church members goes down.

Second, the church must prioritize intentional and relational engagement with the non-churched and de-churched in our communities.

We are now living at a time when fewer and fewer of our neighbors will have grown up with any meaningful contact with the Bible, the Christian church, or Christians in general. Increasingly, the Bible and those who believe it are regarded as strange and outdated, not mainstream or normal. One of my mentors used to say to me that we are now living in an age when most Americans drive by a Christian church building and have the same reaction you do when you drive by a Masonic Lodge: “What kind of weird people go there and what weird things do they do?” In this new reality, the church must be equipped to take the good news of the Gospel to an increasingly skeptical and unbelieving culture. We must be intentional, because we can no longer wait for those outside to come to us (they won’t, when is the last time you visited a Masonic Lodge?). We must be relational because as Christianity become more foreign to the culture, the Gospel will need to come with a house key (1). That is, one of the most important ways we will open the doors of the church to those who have never been inside is first by opening our lives and our homes, our living rooms and our dinner tables.

Third, it highlights the need for the church to be a praying people.

The early Christian movement faced significant odds as it sought to bear witness to Christ in the Greco-Roman world. They had no social capital, very few resources, a very distinct and foreign way of life, and a message of a crucified savior that was offensive to the Greeks and a stumbling block to Jews. Yet, over the course of a few decades the Christian movement was exploding rapidly throughout the world. What can account for this? Not the great ingenuity or wisdom of the church, but the fact that Jesus Christ really did die, rise again, ascend into heaven, and poured out his Spirit on the church. A real movement of the Gospel has always been, and continues to be God’s work. Thus, one of the central ministries of the early church was that of prayer, calling on God’s name for him to work through them for his kingdom advancement (Acts 2:42; etc.). Prayer is not merely a hoop to jump through to get to the real ministry of the church, it is the real ministry of the church. We have not the resources, wisdom, or strength to do battle with the spiritual forces of evil in our day, but the Risen Savior does. And as Spurgeon once said, “Prayer moves the arm which moves all else.”

Finally, let me say while these statistics may seem daunting, I believe the moment we are living in is one filled with opportunity. As Jesus said, the harvest is plentiful. In Scottsdale that is certainly true, as 80-85% of Scottsdale is non-churched or de-churched. As we celebrate both Good Friday and Easter Sunday this weekend, may it give us confidence in our Risen Savior and his promises and presence. He is reigning, he is the one who builds his church, and the gates of hell cannot prevail. So let’s engage our communities prayerfully, intentionally, relationally, yet confidently because our Lord has many people in this city, and he will advance his kingdom through his people, and as history has shown, sometimes even in spite of his people.

(1) Rosaria Butterfield, “The Gospel Comes with A House Key.”