Repost: Churning Churches

By DAVID VAN BIEMA Mon Feb 25, 5:35 PM ET

A major new survey presents perhaps the most detailed picture we've yet had of which religious groups Americans belong to. And its big message is: blink and they'll change. For the first time, a large-scale study has quantified what many experts suspect: there is a constant membership turnover among most American faiths. America's religious culture, which is best known for its high participation rates, may now be equally famous (or infamous) for what the new report dubs "churn."
The report, released today by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, is the first selection of data from a 35,000- person poll called the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. Says Pew Forum director Luis Lugo, Americans "not only change jobs, change where they live, and change spouses, but they change religions too. We totally knew it was happening, but this survey enabled us to document it clearly."

According to Pew, 28% of American adults have left the faith of their childhood for another one. And that does not even include those who switched from one Protestant denomination to another; if it did, the number would jump to 44%. Says Greg Smith, one of the main researchers for the "Landscape" data, churn applies across the board. "There's no group that is simply winning or simply losing," he says. "Nothing is static. Every group is simultaneously winning and losing."

For some groups, their relatively steady number of adherents over the years hides a remarkable amount of coming and going. Simply counting Catholics since 1972, for example, you would get the impression that its population had remained fairly static - at about 25% of adult Americans (the current number is 23.9%). But the Pew report shows that of all those raised Catholic, a third have left the church. (That means that roughly one out of every 10 people in America is a former Catholic, and that ex-Catholics are almost as numerous as the America's second biggest religious group, Southern Baptists.) But Catholicism has made up for the losses by adding converts (2.6% of the population) and, more significantly, enjoying an influx of new immigrants, mostly Hispanic.

An even more extreme example of what might be called "masked churn" is the relatively tiny Jehovah's Witnesses, with a turnover rate of about two-thirds. That means that two-thirds of the people who told Pew they were raised Jehovah's Witnesses no longer are - yet the group attracts roughly the same number of converts. Notes Lugo, "No wonder they have to keep on knocking on doors."

The single biggest "winner," in terms of number gained versus number lost, was not a religious group at all, but the "unaffiliated" category. About 16% of those polled defined their religious affiliation that way (including people who regarded themselves as religious, along with atheists and agnostics); only 7% had been brought up that way. That's an impressive gain, but Lugo points out that churn is everywhere: even the unaffiliated group lost 50% of its original membership to one church or another.

The report does not speculate on the implications of its data. But Lugo suggests, "What it says is that this marketplace is highly competitive and that no one can sit on their laurels, because another group out there will make [its tenets] available" for potential converts to try out. While this dynamic "may be partly responsible for the religious vitality of the American people," he says, "it also suggests that there is an institutional loosening of ties," with less individual commitment to a given faith or denomination.

Lugo would not speculate on whether such a buyer's market might cause some groups to dilute their particular beliefs in order to compete. There are signs of that in such surveys as one done by the Willow Creek megachurch outside Chicago, which has been extremely successful in attracting tens of thousands of religious "seekers." An internal survey recently indicated much of its membership was "stalled" in their spiritual growth, Lugo allowed that "it does raise the question of, once you attract these folks, how do you root them within your own particular tradition when people are changing so quickly."

The Pew report has other interesting findings; the highest rates for marrying within one's own faith, for example, are among Hindus (90%) and Mormons (83%). The full report is accessible at the Pew Forum site. View this article on Time.com

Fear Is Good

This comes from Mike Pink. I hope you enjoy.


There are many identifiers of true humility, but one which is often overlooked is prayer. When we don't pray, we are saying in effect, "I can handle this myself." When we do pray, we are acknowledging our lack of ability and/or lack of trust in that ability and asking for God's influence, help, and aid in the situation. The more capable you are, the more you better learn to depend on God, or you will set yourself up for a fall.

One way to do that is to always be stretching beyond your comfort zone, beyond your known abilities and into that area where fear rears its ugly head. If you are not facing down fear, you are probably not attempting very much. If fear is paralyzing you right now, you are quite close to deliverance. You are entering the faith zone, where you must walk by faith and not by sight.

Get up a little earlier just to spend time with the Father. Read His word and then just get a pen and paper and listen. Write down the thoughts He gives you and obey. This is called listening prayer. So much of our prayer time is us telling God stuff He already knows and asking Him for things or favor, etc. But what He wants to give us more than anything is Himself, His presence, His love. He wants us to cognitively experience Him. Train yourself to be quiet and wait upon the Lord. How long should you wait? Until you experience His mercy (favor, grace) (Psalm 123:2)

In the end, you will find new strength, mount up with wings like an eagle and soar. When you run, you will not be weary and when you walk, you will not faint. (Isa 40:31)