"A Pew Research study finds 64% of Americans who typically attend church at least monthly attended a religious service in person in September 2021—up from 43% in March 2021 and 33% in July 2020." - Lifeway
"Two noticeable reasons stand out among the reasons young adults stop attending church for at least a year between ages 18-22: 32% dropped out because church members seemed judgmental or hypocritical 25% dropped out because they disagreed with the church’s stance on political/social issues" - Lifeway
"New research shows that Americans’ religiosity increasingly doesn’t line up with whether they officially belong to a congregation." - C.Today
"DJ Soto began preaching in the world of virtual reality (VR) in 2016. He is the founder and bishop of Virtual Reality Church, a church that is intended to be radically inclusive and consistent with Christianity’s long history of adapting to new forms of media." - C.Leaders
"The National COVID-19 Church Attendance Project (NCCAP) represents our efforts to try to see the bigger picture. By gathering as many individual church stories as possible, from all over the country, we aim to provide a broad sense of the impact of COVID on the church and what the path to recovery has looked like so far." - C.Today
When it comes to church participation, it is tempting to label the unenthused as probably unregenerate. Although this may be the case, it might be that professing believers who have lost the desire to come to church are simply socially anxious, isolated, and fearful of commitment. What I call “socially disconnected.”
Some people hate the church because they were raised in church-going abusive or hypocritical families and understandably want nothing to do with the church; some are vocal (or even militant) about this rejection while others console themselves, thinking they love Jesus but not His people. We are right to sympathize with those who thus suffered, but we also need to remember that such excuses will evaporate before the all-knowing Judge of all. To write off all churches or Christians is nothing more than stereo-typing and prejudice.
We live in a day, however, when growing numbers of professing believers avoid church for a reason they will not admit to others or even themselves: they are socially inhibited. (This should not be confused with shyness or introversion, or autism; shy, introverted, or moderately autistic people can be quite social, particularly if they have developed good social skills). Among the socially disconnected, complaints about the church may or may not be justified, but such complaints are not the actual reason for their non-attendance, just a handy pretext.
"To truly understand how healthy we are as a church we have to know how we are caring for the three circles of people we are called to shepherd; our neighbors, our followers and our disciples." - C.Leaders
"Our information at this point is both early and anecdotal, but we are hearing from numerous pastors that many church members who were frequent in their church attendance are now once-a-monthers. This observation lends itself to many questions. Is this trend temporary, one that will improve as COVID concerns wane?" - Thom Rainer
