Church Planting in the Midst of The Great Dechurching

The stars of my anecdotal experience aligned when the research and analysis of The Great Dechurching confirmed what I have felt and witnessed as a church planter over the past two and a half years.

Christians That Don’t Go to Church?

Pillar Church launched in April of 2022, and by God’s grace, we have experienced steady growth since then. My wife and I have lived in a newly built master-planned community since October 2020, where we got to know neighbors, made new friends, and formed some deep relationships that we continue to cherish.

Inevitably, faith and church would come up in conversation with our neighbors. Often, they shared that they were Christians. We found that we shared many, if not all, of the same core beliefs, but these Christians did not go to church. Seeing it as divine timing, I talked to them about the new church we were planting, and then, more often than not, they would come to Pillar. Some would even become members.

Re-Reaching the Reached?

I often told my wife and other ministry friends something like, "It feels like we are re-reaching the reached." I chalked most of it up to COVID-19 and the fact that many people had just moved to the area. I assumed they just had not found a church yet. However, the same trends continue as we continue to see the pandemic further and further in the rearview mirror. We meet people who are ostensibly Christian, and yet they don’t belong to a church. I am vexed but grateful because those conversations are generally easy invites to Pillar.

Little did I know I was experiencing, to a T, trends backed up by the tremendous research of The Great Dechurching. A regular church planter/pastor not only agreed with me but said, “Yes, there’s data to back it up, and the opportunities are real.”

The Dechurched Data

The data says that 15% of American adults, about 40 million people, have stopped going to church.[1] It seems like a bulk of the de-churched are in my neighborhood, just waiting to be invited. I know they are in yours, too.

The authors make an outsized plea: "If there is one single application from our research that you walk away with, please let it be this: invite your de-churched friends back to a healthy church with you." When they considered what might bring a Christian back through the church doors, they discovered a simple answer: they longed for a place to belong. So, they exhort readers to remember that many de-churched individuals simply need a friend to invite them to a church where they can belong.

So, what now?

The data and Pillar’s two-and-a-half years of church planting experience tell the same story. People desire a place to belong, and the church can give them that. They just need to be invited to a healthy church.

Pillar's mission speaks explicitly to being "a healthy church that makes and equips disciples for the glory of God." Being a healthy church [read: biblical leadership and biblical priorities that foster a gospel culture] is crucial for people to experience as they enter back into the life of a church after "the inertia of career, family, and other interests have sidelined church."[2]

So, let's go, Church! The opportunity is great. Reach out and invite your neighbors to church. “If there is one single application from our research that you walk away with, please let it be this: invite your de-churched friends back to a healthy church with you.”[3] Of course, we want to reach the lost and see people repent, believe the gospel, and enter the Kingdom of God, but also need to re-reach the reached with healthy, biblical churches where people can belong!

[1] Jim Davis, Michael Graham, and Ryan P. Burge, The Great Dechurching: Who's Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2023), xxii.

[2] The Great Dechurching, 49.

[3] The Great Dechurching, 123.