News / Education
Authors ask, ‘Is your church essential?’
What it takes to reach people for Christ
Seven months later she dropped out.
For Karen, church was no longer an important part of her life. Living in south Florida, she decided there were plenty of other things to do on a Sunday.
"I really don’t feel that guilty," she said. "I still pray and read my Bible."
Karen is just one of the 70 percent of young adults between the ages of 18-22 who stop going to church.
In the B&H Publishing Group book Essential Church?: Reclaiming a generation of dropouts, LifeWay President and CEO Thom S. Rainer and his son, Sam, take a close look at people like Karen and examine why they are leaving churches in droves. They also offer solutions for churches who want to reach out to this growing number of dropouts.
The elder Rainer has written 20 books, including Simple Church, and has served as pastor or interim pastor of 11 churches. Sam is a pastor in Sarasota, Fla., and speaks frequently on helping churches become stronger and healthier. He is president and CEO of Rainer Research and writes a column for Outreach magazine.
The Rainers found in their research that plenty of people are members of churches who either rarely attend or don’t go at all. Specifically, there are 16 million people who are members churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, but on any given Sunday, only 6 to 7 million of them show up. There are 5 or 6 million members who never show up, or their attendance pattern is CEO (Christmas, Easter and Other special events), the Rainers contend in the book.
"We saw this research and this book as a tool to remedy that problem," Thom said in a recent interview.
While researching the book, Thom and Sam interviewed some of those who have dropped out of church. They also share what they’ve learned through their own experiences as pastors.
"We used the first half of the book to discuss the ‘why’ behind that reality," Thom said. "But we were not satisfied to produce a book on the descriptive problem alone. So, in the second half of the book, we offer church leaders prescriptive solutions."
The book points to many reasons for people dropping out of church. Some of them simply want a break. Others move off to college and stop attending. Many start working on Sundays and can no longer attend church.
The problem is that once they stop going, they rarely find a reason to go back.
The Rainers believe all of these reasons come down to one thing – most of these people no longer see church as an essential part of their lives. It’s that discovery that fueled the Rainer’s desire to write their book on reclaiming a generation of church dropouts.
"We believe that it is possible, but not necessarily easy, for every church to become essential to the lives of their members," Thom said.
Churches first have to be willing to try new approaches if they are going appeal to those who have lost interest – especially younger generations. Pastors and church leaders need to give people a reason to keep coming back, the authors write.
Younger generations hunger for more in-depth Biblical training, not "anemic teaching and preaching," Thom adds.
"I would hear about passages from three or four books of the Bible in a single sermon, but I couldn’t figure out how they tied together," said one church dropout, who is identified in the book as "Marcus."
"And then I would go to a small group, and we would talk about some great issues, but no one explained how it tied in to the totality of Scripture. After four years at that church, I had not received any significant doctrinal teachings."
Another solution involves giving younger members more responsibility and opportunities of leadership. This gives them more reason to commit and engage in the church, the Rainers write.
Gimmicks and sales pitches don’t work.
"While this generation has become desensitized to the constant flow of marketing, they are searching for authentic relationships," Sam adds.
"If active churchgoing students see the same façade in the church that they see every day, then there is no compelling reason for them to stay."
Regardless of what the problem is, the authors contend, the problem isn’t going to be fixed overnight. It’s going to take commitment and a willingness to make changes where they need to be made.
"In most churches, meaningful change is accomplished by ‘eating the elephant’ one bite at a time," Thom said.
For a limited time, a free copy of Essential Church? can be downloaded at www.churchleadershipbooks.com/essentialchurch.
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