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More than 1 in 10 Americans\u2014around 40 million of us<\/a>\u2014stopped attending church in the last 25 years.<\/p>\n New research using cell phone location data suggests weekly church attendance (defined as 36 weeks of the 47 studied) is at just 3 percent<\/a>. And even where church attendance has rebounded since pandemic shutdowns, congregational involvement still lags<\/a>.<\/p>\n A shift of this scale is impossible to ignore, but it\u2019s certainly possible to misunderstand.<\/p>\n What if there\u2019s an explanation we\u2019ve overlooked, asked author<\/a> and Mere Orthodoxy<\/em> editor Jake Meador at The Atlantic<\/em><\/a> last week\u2014a reason apart from the usual headline-making factors like church corruption, abuse, and theological differences?<\/p>\n Drawing on The Great Dechurching<\/em><\/a>, a forthcoming book from pastors Jim Davis, Michael Graham, and Ryan P. Burge, Meador argues that \u201cthe defining problem driving out most people who leave is \u2026 just how American life works in the 21st century.\u201d<\/p>\n Everyone is busy. Job hours are long and unpredictable. Finances are precarious. The kids have soccer. The baby\u2019s not sleeping through the night. The grandparents need more help around the house. A friend is visiting. I\u2019m tired.<\/p>\n \u201cContemporary America simply isn\u2019t set up to promote mutuality, care, or common life,\u201d Meador summarizes, so we\u2019re \u201clonely, anxious, and uncertain of how to live in community with other people.\u201d Forever in the red on time and energy, we don\u2019t spare any of our resources for church.<\/p>\n If that\u2019s true, a church\u2019s first impulse might be to make membership easier, to demand less of overbusy congregants so they\u2019ll still show up. But maybe \u201cthe problem isn\u2019t that churches are asking too much of their members,\u201d Meador proposes, \u201cbut that they aren\u2019t asking nearly enough.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a provocative idea, and on Instagram and the network formerly known as Twitter, Atlantic<\/em> readers were duly provoked. Though the article acknowledged the role of<\/a> \u201creligious abuse and more general moral corruption\u201d in dechurching, social media comments highlighted these factors again and again, often in connection to evangelicals\u2019 politics<\/a>, insisting Meador<\/a> was missing<\/a> this more<\/a> fundamental point<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cChild abuse? Cover-ups? Multi-billion-dollar organizations that pay no taxes? Lies, racism and hypocrisy?\u201d said one Instagram reply<\/a> with hundreds of likes. \u201cNah \u2026 you\u2019re right \u2026 we\u2019re just \u2018too busy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n If Meador and his less-generous readers (and, likely, nonreaders) are talking past each other, perhaps it\u2019s because Meador assumes a conviction that not everyone shares: that for all its difficulties\u2014practical, relational, and ethical<\/a>\u2014church is necessary and good.<\/p>\n I share this conviction too. But if I set it aside, I can see why Meador\u2019s argument would fail to persuade not only those who hate the church for its sins but also those who feel little to nothing about church at all.<\/p>\n Meador\u2019s vision of \u201casking more,\u201d it\u2019s important to note, is overwhelmingly relational. It\u2019s less about doing<\/em> more than about being<\/em> more to each other\u2014rejecting the standard American life, atomized and in thrall to workism from kindergarten on. He argues that the church could become a thicker \u201ccommunity marked by sincere love,\u201d a stronger \u201csafety net in the harsh American economy,\u201d and a consistent reminder that humans are more than the many entries in our calendars.<\/p>\n Yet even this proposal of an increased demand from our local church \u201cmay seem like a tough sell in an era of dechurching,\u201d Meador admits. \u201cIf people are already leaving\u2014especially if they are leaving because they feel too busy and burned out to attend church regularly\u2014why would they want to be part of a church that asks so much of them?\u201d<\/p>\n His answer is that Christians need, as always, to be transformed (Rom. 12:1\u20132). In our context, he argues, we should become the sort of people who reject a too-busy life in which church is just another item on our to-do list\u2014one frequently left unchecked: \u201cWe could be a witness to another way of life outside conventionally American measures of success. Churches could model better, truer sorts of communities, ones in which the hungry are fed, the weak are lifted up, and the proud are cast down.\u201d<\/p>\n We certainly could, and I agree with him in principle. But this logic works in practice only if we\u2019re already<\/em> committed to the notion that attending church is necessary and good, that it\u2019s worth sticking around<\/a>\u2014including when we don\u2019t particularly feel like staying.<\/p>\n Without that foundational assumption, we probably won\u2019t be willing to say yes even if our church were to start asking more of us. Why take the kids out of soccer to make time for small group unless small group matters so much more? We won\u2019t be disposed to do more with church and, crucially, to do less outside church unless we\u2019re already deeply committed to the unique importance of church.<\/p>\n And I don\u2019t think most professing American Christians are. Four days after the Atlantic<\/em> article, The Wall Street Journal <\/em>published an examination<\/a> of middle-aged Americans\u2019 disproportionate decline in church attendance over the last three years. Its data supports Meador\u2019s argument, but its interviews evince this assumption gap I\u2019ve described.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you got faith, you got faith,\u201d one interviewee, Marlon Eddins, told the Journal<\/em><\/a>. \u201cI just don\u2019t think going every Sunday makes you who you are.\u201d<\/p>\n But that\u2019s just it: For Christians, going every Sunday significantly does <\/em>make you who you are<\/a>. Extenuating circumstances aside, routine participation in communal Christian life is the primary location of our worship and discipleship. It shapes our personalities, our social lives, our attention, and our desires<\/a>.<\/p>\n And if you don\u2019t think about church this way\u2014if it\u2019s merely an optional gathering that can be regularly skipped in favor of nice weather or a ball game on TV, as polling shows it is<\/a> for many Americans\u2014then when your church asks for more, your answer will likely be a tired \u201cnah,\u201d if you bother to reply at all.<\/p>\n There\u2019s something of a chicken-and-egg problem here: If church doesn\u2019t ask enough of you to inspire real commitment, you won\u2019t think it\u2019s that important. But if you don\u2019t think church is that important, it can\u2019t realistically<\/a> ask enough of you to make you really commit.<\/p>\n Perhaps, following Meador, the church should simply ask more of us anyway and leave the rest up to God who gives the increase (1 Cor. 3:6). And maybe, whatever happens, there are two reasons to hope.<\/p>\n First, if you\u2019re disappointed over<\/a> the church\u2019s failures, it means you have some investment in the church. The fact that those commenters on Meador\u2019s post are angry means at least they aren\u2019t indifferent. And second, even when we are indifferent, apathetic, or overscheduled\u2014even when we\u2019re very mediocre<\/a> followers of Jesus, seeds choked with worries in thorny American ground (Matt. 13:22)\u2014God can still make us grow.<\/p>\n Bonnie Kristian is editorial director of ideas and books at Christianity Today<\/span>.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n