Poll: Church not losing ‘people to the secular world,’ but because of increased focus on faith and ‘to relate to God’
By Craig M. Kibler, The Layman Online, October 20, 2005
Contrasting sharply with Clifton Kirkpatrick’s claim that the staggering membership losses in the Presbyterian Church (USA) are the result of “losing our people to the secular world,” a national poll says a “growing percentage of church dropouts will be those who leave a local church in order to intentionally increase their focus on faith and to relate to God through different means.”
In a poll released Oct. 10 in his book, Revolution, George Barna profiled a group of more than 20 million adults throughout the nation. “These are people who are less interested in attending church than in being the church,” Barna said. “We found that there is a significant distinction in the minds of many people between the local church – with a small ‘c’ – and the universal Church – with a capital ‘C’.”
The people he profiled, Barna said, tend to be more focused on “being the Church, capital C, whether they participate in a congregational church or not.”
Barna disputes claims about people “disengaging from God when they leave a local church” that are being made by some church leaders – such as Kirkpatrick’s June 2004 comment about the PCUSA, which lost 46,658 members in 2003 and has lost 1.8 million members since 1965. Barna called such claims a “common misconception. … We found that while some people leave the local church and fall away from God altogether, there is a much larger segment of Americans who are currently leaving churches precisely because they want more of God in their life but cannot get what they need from a local church. They have decided to get serious about their faith by piecing together a more robust faith experience. Instead of going to church, they have chosen to be the Church, in a way that harkens back to the Church detailed in the Book of Acts.”
That finding is supported by the results of a survey conducted by the Presbyterian Lay Committee in August. Of the 969 adults participating in the nationwide survey, 73.5 percent said they still attend a PCUSA congregation, but 19.3 percent said they had left the PCUSA to attend church elsewhere. Some of the churches they now attend include non-denominational (4.2 percent); Baptist (3.1 percent); the Presbyterian Church in America and the United Methodist Church (1.9 percent each).
Barna’s findings project that millions of people abandon the entire faith community for the “usual reasons – hurtful experiences in churches, lack of interest in spiritual matters, prioritizing other dimensions of their life.”
The Presbyterian Lay Committee’s survey found similar reasons for people’s dissatisfaction with the PCUSA. Asked if there are “two faiths operating under one denominational roof in the PCUSA,” 92.8 percent said yes, while only 7.2 percent said no.
As for whether the actions of the General Assembly represent their views on such issues they rate as important – such as abortion, the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals contrary to the Book of Order, the blessing of same-sex couples in the church and the PCUSA’s heavy financial support of the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches, among other issues – participants in the survey answered as follows:
Always: 1.3 percent
Most of the time: 8.4 percent
Some of the time: 51.5 percent
Never: 32.7 percent
Offered a series of options as to their view of the future of the PCUSA, survey participants answered as follows:
All sides should continue to dialogue: 28.1 percent
The minority should respect the majority voice: 39.1 percent
There is no common ground; we should go our separate ways: 43.3 percent
Unity and peace are more important than purity: 2.6 percent
I am tired of fighting. I no longer care: 7.7 percent
Barna said his studies do not suggest that most people will drop out of a local church to “simply ignore spirituality or be freed up from the demands of church life.” Instead, a growing percentage of church dropouts will be “those who leave a local church in order to intentionally increase their focus on faith and to relate to God through different means,” he said.
That growth, Barna’s research found, is fueling “alternative forms of organized spirituality, as well as individualized faith experience and expression. Examples of these new approaches include involvement in a house church, participation in marketplace ministries, use of the Internet to satisfy various faith-related needs or interests, and the development of unique and intense connections with other people who are deeply committed to their pursuit of God.”