Why Are People Leaving the Church?

Mac: 0:02

Welcome to Praxis, a podcast where we explore how to practice and embody the way of Jesus in our everyday lives. Thanks so much for taking the time to listen. Today, we're beginning a new series on what some experts are calling the great de-churching. We're currently living in the single greatest religious shift in American history. Forty million adults who once attended church no longer do so, and most of that change has taken place in just the last 25 years. The result of this de-churching is more than just diminished church attendance. This seismic shift is dramatically reshaping the communities we live in.

‍Mac: 0:39

So why are people leaving the church? What exactly are they missing out on, and what does it look like to engage the de-church in a Christ-centered way? Answering these questions is what we're setting out to do. We believe this is a discussion that needs to take place within our churches, because if we are going to be faithful followers of Jesus today, we must figure out what it looks like to engage a de-church culture. Today, we're going to unpack some of the primary reasons that people are leaving the church, as well as some practices that will help us engage this topic in a healthy way. So let's get into it.

Josiah: 1:25

Well, welcome everybody. My name is Josiah

Mac: 1:27

and I'm Mac.

Katie: 1:28

I'm Katie.

Josiah: 1:30

And we're excited to be here. We've got. Adam was just telling us that this is actually the two-year mark of the Praxis podcast. That's crazy.

Katie: 1:40

Look at that, we were just babes.

Mac: 1:42

Happy birthday. I had no clue what I was doing. I was actually a little terrified to start a podcast.

Katie: 1:47

Were you? Yeah, totally, you didn't seem like it.

Mac: 1:50

Well, I was just kind of like I don't know how this is going to go.

Katie: 1:54

Yeah. So here we are two years later Bought a bunch of mics and that soundboard. Custom table made.

Mac: 2:02

Actually it was.

Katie: 2:03

Is it?

Mac: 2:04

Yeah, by Sam. Sam made this oh cool, that's cool.

Katie: 2:07

Got the fancy sound things, whatever they're called.

Josiah: 2:11

Yeah, fancy sound things.

Katie: 2:12

What are they?

Josiah: 2:14

There's like sound absorption foam.

Katie: 2:16

Oh.

Josiah: 2:17

What do you call them? Panels?

Katie: 2:18

It looks fancy.

Josiah: 2:20

In more important news, we have been informed of a new trend that we're really hoping to start here at Crosspoint.

Katie: 2:29

And by we you mean you. No, I'm all in.

Josiah: 2:33

It started with Cameron who if you've been listening for the last two years, would have known that he was here for the first series. He's on our church staff. He brought to our attention a couple of weeks ago that that week was fat bear week. I love this. I love this. It was started from a national was it the National Park Service or the Park Service in Alaska? Is that it Yep? And they take pictures of tagged bears so they can tell which ones are which, and they show their transformation from when they come out of their den in the spring to when they fatten up for the fall. So they show the transformation and people vote on a bracket about which bear is the fattest bear. I love it. And the pictures are ridiculous. They are extremely fat, disproportionately fat the amount that they eat to fatten up for the winter. The question for us today is, if you had to fatten up for the winter, which food? Would you pick to?

Josiah: 3:38

eat the most of which junk food could you just binge out on and gain as much weight as as possible?

Katie: 3:48

Probably some kind of pasta. Ah I mean that's way healthier than I thought.

Josiah: 3:54

I don't know if that's going to fatten you up as much. It would fill you up for sure.

Katie: 3:59

Pasta or brownies.

Mac: 4:01

Yeah, I would do lots of ice cream. I mean I could eat ice cream every night and not get sick of it at all. Yeah, and then I think if it was like cold out deep dish pizza, man, like that's not an everyday thing, like I probably have a limit there, but there's something about a good Chicago style deep dish pizza that I get excited about.

Katie: 4:24

That sounds good.

Mac: 4:25

Yeah.

Katie: 4:26

I would add that to the list.

Mac: 4:27

And I think you would get fat eating those two things regularly. Yep, what about?

Katie: 4:32

you, Josiah? What would you pick? Donuts, oh yes.

Josiah: 4:35

Interesting.

Mac: 4:36

That would not be my choice, just donuts. Yes, what kind A good cake. Old-fashioned cake, donut. Well, you and I have had some runs with donuts.

Josiah: 4:53

By runs we mean not the way you're thinking.

Katie: 4:55

What's your?

Josiah: 4:55

favorite kind of donut. It's become a tradition on road trips to grab donuts from Quick Trip, honestly, and I think Cameron would agree, the maple frosted well, no, he wouldn't do the cream-filled ones, but the maple frosted, cream-filled Long John's from Quick Trip, that donut, I think, is the best donut.

Katie: 5:15

Okay.

Mac: 5:16

And for me I'm just like classic cake donut, yeah, but yeah, we've had some road trips where we stop and just polish off Within like 20 minutes they're gone. They're gone, the dunkers.

Katie: 5:28

I have a new answer, Okay. So both Patty Burns has this brownie recipe where she puts espresso powder in the frosting. She makes them for my birthday. And then Megan Lucas has a similar type of chocolate cake with it. She calls it mocha and it's got like the same kind of espresso powder baked in Either one of those done, also chocolate cake. Espresso chocolate cake.

Josiah: 5:50

Yeah, do you like tiramisu?

Katie: 5:54

Eh, I feel like it's all right.

Josiah: 5:57

Does it have coffee? Taste.

Katie: 5:58

Does it?

Josiah: 5:59

Yeah right, the soaking.

Katie: 6:02

But it's not super chocolatey, if I remember. That's right, the soaking, but it's not super chocolatey, if I remember it's true, not chocolatey.

Mac: 6:10

Yeah, the more chocolate, the better. Well, speaking of runs, I actually went on a run yesterday outside. It was great. Yeah, we're going to do a few week run here on a topic.

Josiah: 6:22

Yeah, yeah. So we are, as you heard in the intro, we are setting up a new series we're calling the Great Dechurching, and this is referencing a book by Jim Davis and Michael Graham called the Great Dechurching. These two pastors sort of suss out the statistics from. Essentially. I think it's the largest research study in the religious context that I think has ever been conducted. This research gives us data on 40 million Americans who have de-churched is the term they use, and when they say de-churched they mean people who once went to church at least once per month now go less than once per year.

Mac: 7:06

Yeah, I think that in and of itself is important to emphasize. This isn't people who never have been to a church. This is people who were once part of a church and now no longer are, and it seems like they've defined that as going at least one time per month. Yeah, and I think that's important because we come up with a lot of and it seems like they've defined that as going at least one time per month.

Josiah: 7:25

Yeah, and I think that's, yeah, it is important because we come up with a lot of you know, we have a lot of ideas in our head of like, oh well, if someone left the church it's just because they, you know, they didn't really attend that often anyway. Well, these are people specifically who did attend very consistently, you know, in many measures, did attend very consistently, you know, in many measures. So, to put this shift into perspective, there have been three sort of three main religious shifts that moved towards Christianity in American history. The first was the first Great Awakening, which happened in the 1730s and 40s. The second Great Awakening, which was, I think they put 1790 to like 1840. And there's a lot of statistics in the book to back up like these were large growths for the church.

Josiah: 8:13

Lots of people started attending and the biggest one actually was the four decades post the Civil War. That was one of the biggest ones. So there's massive growth in church attendance and in membership. And for as long as membership has been tracked in the last like 100 years actually church membership has always been well over 50%. So more than half of Americans have called themselves members of a church, and that happened post all of these religious movements, like early on in American history. Actually there's stigmas about that. The people who lived in the colonies at the beginning were all Christian. Well, they really weren't. Many of them weren't. A lot of people were considered Christians and were members and attending church, but in the last 25 years more people have left the church in the last 25 years than all the people who became Christians in the first and second Great Awakenings and the Billy Graham Crusades combined.

Mac: 9:27

Yeah, that's a shocking reality.

Josiah: 9:30

So there is this huge, massive growth in Christianity and in church attendance as a byproduct of that and lots of people are considered part of church. It's a big part of their lives, but just in the last 25 years, so not in a long time, it's a very short amount of time Since the turn of the millennium. Yeah, basically 40 million of them.

Katie: 9:52

That's a huge number. What's the population of Wisconsin? Like five or 6 million, right. That's like seven or eight times population of our state.

Josiah: 10:01

Yeah, that's insane.

Mac: 10:07

So it's a it is a really big deal, yep, and for those who have been part of our church community in a committed way for a while, naming these types of statistics isn't new. One that I've shared repeatedly comes from Alan Roxburgh's book Joining God Remaking the Church and Changing the World, and he this is like 2009 statistic but he said hey, if you're part of the builder generation, there's a 60% chance you're in church today. If you're part of the boomer generation, well, 40%. Gen X is 20% and if you're millennial or Gen Z, it's a less than 10% chance you're in church today. And so, with each successive generation, the church is losing ground. It's not gaining ground.

Mac: 10:53

John Mark Comer in his book Practicing the Way, he cites a Barna study where 63% of Americans identify as Christian. So this is a current statistic 63% of Americans would identify as Christian, but when they began to do a deeper analysis around, like, okay, but how many of them are following Jesus? In other words, if there's cultural Christians and people are like actually living out their faith, which is a little bit difficult to measure or quantify or qualify but the answer is 4%. So you have 63% of Americans who are basically cultural Christians and of that population 4% are actually like living out the way of Jesus in their everyday life. And of course the pandemic accelerated these trends, I think, quite a bit. You know statistics suggest that the average church in America had about a third of people stay committed, a third of people left and de-churched and a third of people found new churches. So you know that might depend upon your context. Some churches I know grew during that because they were kind of magnets for people. Others have dwindled and so on.

Katie: 12:08

Well, and it seems like from our experience, a lot of churches who maybe didn't have the online option all of a sudden created it because we're in the pandemic. People thought, oh, this is great, I can watch church online, and then there was just not a lot of impetus to get back in person. Like I know people who just started watching online during the pandemic and just never came back.

Mac: 12:28

Yeah, so it's just to say we're now living, this is our cultural moment. We're living in an age of rapid and discontinuous change, and those two words that I just used, rapid and discontinuous, are important. Things are now changing at a rate that is unprecedented. We're not used to the pace of change and historically, the types of change we're experiencing before would take centuries You'd have centuries to like acclimate to. Now things are changing in a matter of minutes, hours, months. You know like. It's such that the pace of change is so fast and it's discontinuous, whereas before change took a much longer period of time. It also is more incremental. The change is built upon previous changes and now it's. The changes that are happening are not necessarily incremental. There's change over here and then change over there, and it's like it's very disorienting, right and I think it's John Mark Comer names how this is impacting the church.

Mac: 13:34

There's been some tectonic shifts, some sizable shifts that the church is that is now catching up to churches. One is that the church has gone from being the majority to increasingly the minority. Right, there are different ways to describe this shift, I suppose, from Christendom to post-Christendom, or Christian to post-Christian, whatever descriptor you like to use. But those statistics you shared, josiah, get at this reality. At one point, being a Christian, that was like the majority culture right, and there's a sense of this is normative and there's a sense of power attached to that and that is just no longer the case. Increasingly, followers of Jesus are now finding themselves on the margins and that can be really disorienting.

Mac: 14:22

Maybe a second shift in light of these trends is that there's a shift from a place of honor in our culture to a place of shame and even disrepute. Right, it's disreputable in some ways. With this shift from the majority to the minority, there's this shift in social standing. Whereas before the church had a place of honor and a certain degree of respect in the wider culture, it's just no longer the case, and I experienced this as a pastor. You rewind 50, 60, 70 years ago and pastors were respected community leaders, trusted advisors, people oriented positively to pastors.

Mac: 15:05

A Pew study showed that 96% of non-Christians do not trust pastors. That is like a major shift in our culture. I knew it was bad. I didn't think it was that bad, yes. And then maybe a third tectonic shift is that widespread tolerance to sort of rising hostility. Now I do not think Americans, christians in America are being persecuted. I think that is a misuse of the word persecuted. When you look at other people around the world who are actually being killed for their faith. I think we have to be careful about how we use that word. But one thing that is happening is that I do think there's sort of rising hostility and perhaps some antagonism towards Christians, because now we're considered to be part of the problem, right. For instance, in a world of tolerance, you guys are intolerant, right? So being a Christian I'll just name is no longer cool, it's no longer normative, it's no longer sexy.

Katie: 16:04

I mean not that we're not cool. Oh right, right, right, I think we're pretty cool, Okay, well you can tell the world that.

Mac: 16:13

And all of this has been happening within the last 25 years, right, and so it's really disorienting, and I think what we're trying to do in this series is is go. We need to talk about this stuff so we can reimagine what it looks like to be the church, because this way of doing church, where you just trusted people to come and that's how your church would grow, that moment no longer exists. Yeah, right, and so we need to normalize talking about this and reimagine what it looks like to be a church in a new age.

Josiah: 16:44

Yeah, reimagine what it looks like to be a church in a new age. Yeah, yeah, essentially we're. We're shifting from um, you know, standing in our, on our stages and doing the right programs and opening the doors, and of course, people are going to show up like that. That era is over and or, if it hasn't yet, it's shifting towards that. Um, we're moving into a space where our culture is now like it's like the de-churched culture is our mission field.

Mac: 17:12

Yes, Right, and it'd be easy to lament this, you know, and there may be some things to lament or be easy to feel discouraged or hopeless, but I keep telling people like none of this has taken God by surprise and God often does his best work in these moments of cultural upheaval. But it very much depends upon us leaning in and attending to our own transformation and taking risky steps to follow the spirit of Jesus into areas that feel uncertain or scary. Yeah, yeah.

Katie: 17:46

Yeah, as you're describing, that it makes me reflect on my own story a little bit and the transition in particular from high school to college. So I grew up here in Oconomowoc. Lake Country is a largely Christian area, especially 20 plus years ago, and so most of my friends went to some sort of like young life or youth group or church or whatever is very common. And then all of a sudden I go to UW-Madison and I would tell people like, oh yeah, I'm in young life and it was kind of like what? Why? Like, all of a sudden it was just that more antagonistic response and it did feel like it was very much a shift that feels similar to what you're describing. But it also caused me to kind of orient to my faith, maybe in some different ways, and to press deeper into certain things. And looking back I can see how that season really refined me, yeah, and caused me to just kind of press in and and and you came out cooler.

Josiah: 18:43

Look how cool you are.

Katie: 18:44

So cool. I mean, I am kind of a trendsetter, I just bought, I had I bought a purse last, you came out cooler. Yeah, look how cool you are. So cool, so cool. I mean I am kind of a trendsetter. I just bought, I had, I bought a purse last, I got a purse last Christmas and now like half the women in our office have the same purse. Yeah, I'd never heard of this company that you named. Portland Leather yeah, I'd never heard of that yeah.

Mac: 18:57

Maybe it sounds like purse. Yes, what is this? Portland? Yeah, oh, that's right, I remember that. So I imagine we might have some people listening in who are maybe de-churched, right, I don't know. So I guess I would just say, like, how do you think, how should we orient to this conversation? You know what I mean, because I think we have some values that we want to embody in this conversation.

Katie: 19:25

Yeah, I think that's important. I think, gosh, as I think about quote unquote, like the de-churched, what comes to mind for me is like actual names and faces and people and conversations I've had, and so I think that will be something for us to just keep in mind as we take into this conversation, not to treat this as like an abstract concept, as if we're just in some you know classroom talking about statistics and data, that part that's part of the conversation. But I would just encourage us to orient with curiosity and compassion and engage in ways that are productive and Jesus-like and honor the real human stories.

Mac: 20:03

Yes, and I might even add to that, if you're listening to this and you are part of those statistics, like you were once part of a church but no longer are, and whatever the reason and we're going to name some reasons in this episode but we want to be a safe space for you. We want to be a space where you could share your story or communicate honestly, without judgment or reactivity on our part. I mean, I was recently in a conversation with a group of people and one of them confessed that they're no longer connected to a church but they still care about following Jesus. And someone else sort of jumped in super reactively Like well, why not? You need to be going to church, that's important. Like kind of like the.

Mac: 20:46

The idea that they're no longer part of a church, um, caused unease in them and they sort of responded in a they got bigger and man that shut down the conversation right away, like they no longer wanted to share anything related to here's why I'm no longer connected to a church. And so I just noticed in that moment, like man, I want to be the kind of person who can sit and not be reactive in that way and instead pivot towards curiosity and hear and honor their story. You know what I mean.

Josiah: 21:19

Yeah, what you're going to learn as we unpack this today is that everybody does have a story as to why they aren't going to church anymore, especially if they're people who are professing Christians. And if we start to make blanket statements and broad assumptions about who the de-churched is, we're actually really going to miss out on our opportunities, as you're saying, to hopefully invite them back into the fold. And yeah, so today we are with this first episode. We want to begin the conversation by looking at why it is people are leaving, and the book, if you read it, goes into a lot of detail and it actually uses machine learning to create profiles.

Mac: 22:12

What is machine learning? What does that even mean?

Katie: 22:16

AI genre of things I imagine it scans a bunch of data and analyzes it right.

Mac: 22:21

Adam. We're looking at Adam, Adam. What is machine learning?

Adam: 22:24

I'm not going to give you an accurate definition, but I'm guessing, like Josiah said, probably some form of AI that's just looking for specific keywords. That are narrowing down or creating buckets for different types of profiles that Josiah will end up talking about, looking for similarities between stories and stuff like that.

Mac: 22:44

I can work with that definition. Yeah.

Josiah: 22:47

And I think it is important even just in what you were saying, katie this book and this research study was done. They gathered a lot of data. It's not just did you attend church before, do you now? They got lots of data, and the reason why is they were able to use this process of having the computer suss out based on criteria X, y and Z, essentially gather the information we have into, and it created five different profiles of people who were once churchgoers and are not, and there's lots of different things and we're not going to go into all of that, cause that would be multiple episodes in itself.

Josiah: 23:30

But what we did is we took some of that stuff, we got from the book hats and we had and we had some conversations as a staff as well to say, hey, what are we seeing, what are the conversations we're having, what are the conversations we're having, and yeah. So we compiled all of that and narrowed down the reasons into five different categories today. So we want to take time to discuss each one and I think you'll notice, maybe if you are one of these de-churched folk, that there are some things within each reason that we can affirm. Like, if I was in your shoes, maybe I would have had a hard time attending as well. But we're also going to bring some challenge, because we do believe that life is meant to be lived together, that following Jesus is designed to be done in community and we really want to see everyone who is you know that's a follower of Jesus doing that alongside other people. So, yeah, so we're going to bring some things to affirm and challenge and yeah, yeah, yeah.

Katie: 24:44

So the first reason and I would say tends to be, I think, a pretty prominent reason as you hear people's stories and listen to what's out there would be church hurt, and these are people who have left because people within the church have hurt them in some way. And, like I said, I think unfortunately there are quite a few people who fall into this category, and church hurt can happen for any number of reasons. The most extreme cases that we just tend to like hear about more frequently are cases of abuse, especially like sexual abuse or harassment A lot of stories of that in the news over the past 10 plus years but then there's lots of less extreme examples like maybe there was church hurt because of forcing people to conform to a specific lifestyle or a way of behaving. Church leaders that use guilt or shame to get people to do things, offering unwarranted scrutiny over someone's lifestyle in a way that's really not helpful or welcomed by the person. I think we see an increasing awareness lately around the presence of narcissistic leaders, particularly in kind of these bigger evangelical churches where the entire congregation revolves around one person and that person tends to use their power in toxic ways to hurt people, which we talked about a lot in our last series.

Katie: 25:57

So, unfortunately, church hurt, I think, is a major reason why people leave the church. And, man, there's a lot to affirm here. I think church hurt is real and it's painful. I've talked to people who have left the church for this reason. It's painful when you are hurt in any area of life by anyone, but I think it's especially painful when it comes from the church. Like the place that's supposed to be embodying the presence of God to you, like the most loving and gracious presence, uses that power to hurt you.

Katie: 26:28

I once worked with a woman who was sexually abused by a priest or pastor I forget what denomination it was as a child and she just talked about how damaging that was, because it wasn't just the abuse that she endured, it was the way that it changed her perception of God and spiritual authority. Like the place she was supposed to be safe was the place that took that position and it caused so much pain. So I've sat and talked to people that have this experience. So if you're listening and if you experience church hurt, we just want to say that we hear you and we see you and we are so, so sorry.

Mac: 27:08

Yeah, I heard you name several things that feel important that I'd like to like maybe summarize back for our listeners. So bucket number one, or reason number one, is church hurt. I think I heard you say that church hurt happens along a spectrum. Not all church hurt is equal. So maybe you know, trauma is a big word these days and it seems there's like capital T trauma and then there's little t trauma and there's, like you know, like major examples of church hurt and then there's more like minor examples of church hurt, but it happens along a spectrum.

Mac: 27:46

Yep.

Mac: 27:46

Right, yep. And then I hear you saying and our first pivot when it comes to someone who has experienced church hurt is there's probably a lot to validate there, because the place that's supposed to be a hospital ends up being the place where they get wounded and hurt. Like right, the church is supposed to be a hospital for the hurting, not a place that is perpetuating hurt and harm, and so there's just a lot to it, and I've encountered a lot of people who have church hurt across the entire spectrum. It reminds me of a woman maybe a more minor example, but or not, like you know, sexual abuse or something like that but a woman who works out at our CrossFit gym.

Mac: 28:29

At some point we ended up in a spiritual conversation and I was surprised to learn that she grew up Lutheran and went to a Lutheran church and a Lutheran school and one of her family members died. And in seventh grade her pastor came in to teach one of the religion classes and she had the courage to ask the question. So what happened to my family member after he or she died? And he very boldly and sort of matter-of-factly said they're burning in hell. Jeez Jeez.

Mac: 29:00

Yeah, so it's worth noting in that moment like the pastor is in a position of authority, right, he's being asked a question that's clearly sensitive.

Katie: 29:11

By a child.

Mac: 29:12

Yep, there's a lot behind it and he does incredible damage with his response, right? Whatever you think about what happens after death is besides the point. The point is that pastoral moment was horrendous, right, and out of that experience she was disturbed and traumatized by that response and in that moment said I want nothing to do with this. And now what's so interesting is that she worships ancient Greek gods and the gods of the Vikings.

Mac: 29:49

So I just have so many questions about that. It strikes me as super odd, but it's just to go like that. That's how she narrated her spiritual journey to me, and the starting point was this very specific moment of hurt yeah, right, yeah.

Josiah: 30:03

And we're like you said something, katie these moments and these issues of hurt do more than just offend you, as maybe some of the blanket statements you would make about someone Like you were just offended and you know God isn't that. But when you're in that place of vulnerability and you are damaged in that way, your perception of God changes. So why, if I think God is this, why would I keep attending church? And so we can have compassion and a lot of that empathy, in the same way that if someone was abused by a family member and they had trust issues with other people in those positions, you wouldn't blame them for the problem, right? We would say I get it right. So I just think there's a lot to affirm that we do see that and feel for that. Affirm that like we do see that and feel for that.

Mac: 31:00

And especially if you have experienced a significant trauma in a church, I would validate. There may be a season of time where you have to walk away yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, and not be connected to a church to find healing. And it would be right and normal, before you ever reenter, to do some homework on what kind of church is this and so on, and take baby steps. And the church has to regain your trust through consistent behavior over time, right?

Katie: 31:25

Yeah, yeah, and that's a good segue into something else I would add to this category, and that's this If we believe that our God is a God of redemption and we do and we believe that God is in the business of redeeming and restoring and making all things new, then we also believe that the hurt you experienced isn't the end of the story for you. I would say God wants you to find healing and wholeness, and I don't want to downplay or take lightly the courage it would take to work through whatever pain was caused, but I would want to say that not all churches are like that. There are good and healthy churches out there who want to love you and care for you in the authentic and gracious way of Jesus. There are people who want to do life with you and create community, and I'd hate to see you miss out on that because of the hurt that's in your past.

Mac: 32:15

Yeah, yeah. So I guess what we're saying is when it comes to what we would affirm. There's so much we would want to affirm about the hurt that someone experienced and the care, the tender care they may need, but I also sense, maybe, a shift to go. But how will we challenge those who are in this camp? One is just like we want to challenge you to get healing, like God wants your healing, and that's good news. Maybe another layer of challenge is and this very much depends upon the kind of church hurt someone may have experienced. But I'm thinking of people.

Mac: 32:49

I do think there's a category of people just recognizing that not all church hurt is equal. I think some people sort of hide behind church hurt because it's a popular phrase, when, in fact, man, you just experience like normal relationships and relationships are messy. I'm just being honest, like I know people who would say, well, I've experienced church hurt and it's like, oh, tell me about it. And then you get into it and you're like, no, that's just life. Like you know what I mean. That's life with broken people trying to do life together. And I think you actually diminish the stories of people of legitimate trauma in the church when you claim the same phrase. You know, yeah, it's tough, you know what I mean. So I also think, like for me I have my radars like when is church actually being used as like a deflection mechanism to sort of like push things away without like attending to reality?

Mac: 33:42

And I also say and this is for everybody a challenge is like sometimes our deepest hurts, when we experience healing, end up being the greatest catalyst or sort of things that drive us. And I actually think those who have experienced church hurt in a deep way as they experience healing, there's a deep invitation. I would have to go, come be part of creating something healthier. And I'm someone who's experienced church hurt. I'll just name that. It's not just something that congregants experience, it's something that pastoral leaders experience. I've experienced trauma in the church. I've been traumatized and working through that healing process, I found on the other side of it is not only wholeness but deep motivation to want to see a different type of church embody the way of Jesus in the world. Yeah, I follow someone on Instagram.

Josiah: 34:34

She's an author. Yeah, I follow someone on Instagram. She's an author and her whole platform is she talks very openly about there was abuse she experienced in church was a part of you know followed a variety of narcissistic leaders and, after taking a period of time to say, like, what do I actually think about all this, was able to find healing and wholeness and now she really is a prophetic voice that speaks out against the abusers, against, you know, structures of like church leadership that are harmful, like church leadership that are harmful but also cause a lot of challenge to people that want to hide behind the wall of church hurt, when really there's a difference between abuse and relational pain.

Josiah: 35:32

So I think it would be good to distinguish that.

Mac: 35:35

Yeah, and here's the tricky part Maybe this is the last thing I'll say on this topic is that, like when a person hurts you, it's hard because relationships are part of the pain but they're also part of the healing. Yeah, and that's the hard part. So you gotta find those people you can trust and begin that healing process with. But first big reason is church hurt. There's so much we want to affirm and validate about that and please hear any challenges as humble submissions to you, things that you're going to have to maybe pray through and go. Is this something God's asking? Where is God leading me in my journey of healing and re-entry? Okay, reason number two is deconstruction.

Mac: 36:15

I've written about deconstruction on the Praxis blog. I wrote a couple articles, so I'm not going to review everything there. People can check those out. But a quick this is again a term church heard is being used a lot deconstruction we hear a lot about it. It's the process of dissecting, so think, questioning, interrogating, taking things apart in idea, belief, practice, tradition or system to determine its truthfulness, usefulness and impact. So a couple things just to. I know I just said a lot, but deconstruction is a process. It's not a one-time event and at its heart. It involves a deep interrogation of beliefs and behaviors to re-examine their truthfulness and usefulness. I like the example of it's like doing cleaning out your closet, maybe once a year, where you're kind of like taking out all the things that are in your closet and you have these different categories of like. Oh, I'm definitely keeping this, I'm definitely throwing this away. This is in the maybe category, right, it's sort of like that, but only with beliefs and behaviors, and this has definitely been the case for me. I've gone through deep seasons, or perhaps multiple seasons, of deconstruction on a whole variety of things, and they actually come out with a much deeper faith or a deeper sense of conviction. That has been my experience with deconstruction. In fact, I'll tell you, there's rarely a season where I'm not deconstructing something and for the most part, my questions have fueled deeper faith and trusting God and so on.

Mac: 37:43

But this is not the result for everybody, perhaps not the majority. For many, deconstruction has led to deconversion or de-churching, and we're seeing this happen in large numbers. And one big reason for this that we named in a previous episode is authoritarian dogmatism. Many people grew up in a church who experienced sort of this authoritarian dogmatic presence where it's like, hey, this is what you need to believe. And then they're policing and enforcing those beliefs and, by extension, right behaviors. And enforcing those beliefs and, by extension, right behaviors. Well, eventually they come to question those things and there's often a reaction against it. Right, and this is.

Mac: 38:33

I think some of the buckets that are being deconstructed are like political ideologies, a fusion between church and partisan allegiance or nationalism. There's theological convictions that are under being deconstructed, um whole bunch of topics, from you know what happens after you die, to atonement theory, to so on, um, biblical authority the list is endless. Lifestyle expectations, purity, culture, um, human sexuality, things like that, and leadership models, the, the CEO model of leadership, and so on. All right, so, um, man, what do you guys think of that? You know, is there anything you'd add to fill out what we mean by deconstruction? And then I'm wondering if we can pivot and go. What would you affirm and what? What? What might we challenge about those who are in this camp of I'm no longer part of a church because I've deconstructed my faith?

Katie: 39:13

It seems like this has been a hot topic for the past couple of years. I don't know. I feel like I've listened to more than one podcast where people are kind of like debating deconstruction and there's definitely some camps that see it somewhat antagonistically. I guess Just thinking like, well, deconstruction is like qualitatively a bad thing because it's it's leading people to leave. And I think the way you're approaching it, mac, is going look, deconstruction is like unpacking something and questioning and and we should all be doing that all the time. I love that you said there's rarely a season where I'm not deconstructing something. Um, just because you deconstruct doesn't mean that you're going to de-church. In fact, it could lead to a deeper faith. But certainly some that do deconstruct do leave.

Josiah: 40:01

Yeah, yeah and there's. I think there are plenty of things that were handed to us in the faith sense that are worth deconstructing, Like I could affirm that like, yeah, if you, you know, grew up and your spiritual leader was missing the mark in a very obvious way and didn't demonstrate the love of Jesus, super well you should.

Josiah: 40:26

It would be a good thing. I mean, I know, shortly after I moved here, went through like a group with you, mac, in my own life, in my own life, and there were a lot of things that there were a lot of things that was very, very much spirit led deconstruction happening in that group for me, like things that were that were just assumptions that I had in my mind, that I realized they were actually skewing how I viewed God and what and the way he wanted to be involved in my life. So you kind of I don't know, I think you almost have to from an affirmation side, you can almost assume that deconstruction needs to happen in order to grow.

Mac: 41:11

Yes, yeah, and I'm biased here I had a moment, I think it was last week, with Katie and Cameron. We were sitting at my office and I was talking about something and they both looked at me and they're like you realize people don't think like you and I was like what, what do you mean? Kind of this mirror moment. And so maybe most people don't think like me, but I actually think deconstruction is essential for faith. You know, like in the book of Genesis, jacob wrestles with God and then is renamed Israel, which means he who wrestles with God. So the people of God literally are given the name those who wrestle with God. I think wrestling it out with God is like what it means to have faith. So and I'm wired that way I mean I I've shared this story before, but I got dinner with a professor of mine from college who I've remained in contact with and it was our first time seeing each other in person, like 18 years, along with my wife, josie, and he had this moment where he's like here's what I remember when you were students, and he remembered Josie being really smart and a great test taker and he said Mac, I remember you, you grew up Catholic and most of our student body grew up evangelical and so we would be discussing something biblically or theologically and your hand would shoot up right away because it would raise a question for you.

Mac: 42:35

But those questions were off limits for most of the evangelical students. They knew not to ask those questions, but you didn't know that. So you were like breaking the rules, but you had no idea. And those are exactly the types of questions the content was supposed to provoke.

Mac: 42:48

So I've always been someone who's like hey, I'm not going to be scared of asking questions you know, and I don't think other people should be either, because when you attend to those questions it can strengthen your faith. And so there's so much about the deconstruction process. When done, well, I would want to affirm but if we shift gears a little bit and go, but what would we want to challenge? For me, it's not deconstruction itself that I want to challenge, it's the posture that I detect underneath that's driving the deconstruction. Okay, so there are people I know who are deconstructing and they're not doing it from a genuine point of wrestling with God. They just want to tear things down and they have no desire to reconstruct.

Mac: 43:33

And I often don't detect a genuine desire to know the truth. It's just sort of this arrogant, sort of antagonism towards all things faith and man. That's easy to do, I'm just gonna tell you it's really easy to pick apart. It's a lot harder to reconstruct something beautiful. And so for me, I love accompanying people through deconstruction when they're genuinely wrestling, like I sense a humble, hungry posture underneath it, but I find myself calibrating a lot of challenge with not, you know, in a way that invalidates people, but I find myself kind of trying to address the posture when I sense an underlying antagonism or arrogance to the deconstruction. Do you guys notice different postures when it comes to deconstruction?

Josiah: 44:20

Yeah, yeah, I think deconstructing properly does take a certain level of vulnerability and that may be difficult for some people more than others. You know, I was just talking to my daughter the other night because she was really mad and being kind of disrespectful. Um, she's younger, she's nine, eight nine.

Josiah: 44:46

She's nine. Thank you. I got a lot of kids in my house, yeah, Um, but I was laying in bed with her and I was like all right, why are you sad? And she's like you don't know, I'm sad, I'm mad and I was like all right why, are you sad and she's like. You don't know I'm sad, I'm mad and I was like well, I actually do know you're sad and I was like you want to know why she's like what.

Mac: 45:07

The listeners are missing your facial expressions. I love that. I wish I could see it.

Josiah: 45:13

Oh yeah, she's full of it, full of sass, I said because anger is a secondary emotion. I said so nine times out of ten. If you're angry, I assume there's something deeper underneath it. And she looked at me and her eyes started welling up with tears. We had a great moment, which is this is what I'm planning on saying now.

Josiah: 45:36

But what I'm saying is deconstruction from a place of vulnerability where you're honest about why you're deconstructing. Maybe there was church hurt, maybe you were hurt. Maybe the way you really view God underneath the surface is someone who he isn't and that needs to be deconstructed. But if you deconstruct from a place of vulnerability and openness, I think you experience a lot of deconstruct from a place of vulnerability and openness. I think you experience a lot of good news and a lot of moments where God shows up in a way that you didn't think he could before.

Josiah: 46:08

But when you deconstruct from a place of responding to the anger and you assume that's the process of deconstruction and the reasons why you're angry just give you fuel to shield yourself from being honest about the things you really believe about it, as well as use them as weapons to attack others who maybe have been wrong about things. I think that you end up de-churched and mad at God and mad at people. I think that you end up de-churched and mad at God and mad at people and really, underneath it, I can think of actually another conversation I had recently where someone has done some deconstructing and when they were more honest, when they put the weapons down, they're really missing what it means to be a part of a church family that has your back. So underneath it there's either pain or sadness or other things, and it's easier for people to use the anger and the frustration as the thing that they're actually mad about.

Mac: 47:10

Yeah, so maybe the question is what's driving the deconstruction? We have to get after that, Because if it is hurt or pain or something like that is what's driving the deconstruction we have to get after that, Because if it is hurt or pain or something like that. Well then, that's determining the outcome of your search. Yeah, you know, the very thing you're frustrated about could be determining the outcome.

Katie: 47:29

Yeah, I was going to say I think it's kind of, unfortunately, a human default to orient with some sense of self-righteousness and superiority, and we see that happening inside the church. And we also see that happening outside the church it's much harder to do what you're describing.

Mac: 47:45

Yep. So reason number two is deconstruction. So much we'd want to affirm about deconstructing well and that being an important part of transformation.

Josiah: 47:53

Also, some challenge underneath it just going hey, what's driving this and attending to that, so we can do so in an honest and authentic way, yeah, and I think one more thing I'd add to the challenge is if you're someone who's just part of a church and you're listening to this and your assumptions about people who are deconstructing have been like, oh, these people are just angry, they're mad at God, and then you know, you kind of write them off. I would say one of the biggest, the biggest contributors to healthy deconstruction and, honestly, probably almost a prerequisite, would be having a safe place within a church community to ask questions, yes, and to poke at things and try to find holes in theories and create a safe space around you, with the people in your life, where they can ask questions and they don't get judged for it. Yes, 100%, very important.

Mac: 48:45

And we want to be that kind of place, yeah, in your life, where they can ask questions and they don't get judged for it. Yes, 100 very important. We want to be that kind of place.

Josiah: 48:49

Yeah, and I'm I'm so grateful that I have had spaces like that, um, in my own life. All right. Reason three uh, this one we labeled as a shifting priorities. So this is, um, people who once attended church and it was a priority in their lives of attending, but other things in life have taken the priority over engaging in church consistently. I don't think that this is very hard to find some of the reasons, but we named a lot of these as a staff. We kind of listed like hey, this is the things I hear from people when I check in on them, like hey, we haven't seen you in a while, and they'll say things like oh, like I'm just really busy. Um, or uh, my kids are in sports and they travel every big one every weekend kids sports could maybe be its own category in this area for sure.

Mac: 49:45

I was talking to a guy from our church who was coaching 5-0s baseball 10-year-olds and he was like we have two practices a week nights where it's practices a couple hours each. One weeknight we have a double header game. So two games back to back and then a tournament every weekend. And he's like and this weekend the tournament starts on Friday, I'm the coach, I have no idea how I'm supposed to get off work and it's like an hour away. So it's five days a week, yes. And it's like, wow, well, no wonder you're have little margin to live out the way of Jesus with and alongside other people. Yeah, yeah.

Josiah: 50:28

So I think you'll probably find that some of these last few, these other three reasons there, may be a little less to affirm, and I don't want to say that in a judgmental way, I'm just stating that I think that the shifting of priorities in people's lives calls attention to the fact that the priority of being a part of a church body has decreased. Yeah, it has lowered on the totem pole of importance. And you know, I think other ones are just like travel. As people, you know like there's major life transitions. You move from one part of life to another.

Josiah: 51:10

Maybe you're an empty nester now and church rhythms were normal and now you're like, oh, I'm traveling more and I'm going to go here, do this. And you know like job changes, all those other types of things, come in the way of attending church. And I think I would say, like I can affirm, life is busy, like in our society today, it is very difficult to live a life in which you have margin at all in your time. Right, it takes a lot of effort. I mean, we have done classes at church about prioritizing things like Sabbath and rhythms of work and rest, and silence and solitude.

Josiah: 51:58

We have to implement these things and it takes a lot of effort to be a follower of Jesus and have some sort of margin where it looks like, where we have to shift and rearrange priorities. So there's lots of grace for trying to figure out busy schedules, you know.

Mac: 52:14

Another affirmation with this is that I think historically, the church created so many activities and expected people like turn their world upside, like they were part of the problem. You could spend every night of the week doing some churchy activity, you know what I mean. You could be just as busy. You're just doing churchy stuff, and I don't think that's what we're talking about.

Mac: 52:36

One thing I would want to affirm is that the places people are spending their time let's say, coaching a baseball team or their kids' sports those are actually places of mission where God is at work and you can be a part of it. There's one way to go to a sporting event where you're just kind of like it's all about the kids or whatever. There's another way of showing up where you're like hey, this is a place of mission. I can get to know all of these parents. Some of them are like on a spirit. All of them are on a spiritual journey in some place, and Some of them are like on a spirit. All of them are on a spiritual journey in some place, and this is actually like me being the church in this area.

Josiah: 53:11

right, yeah, maybe there's some of the kids you're finding relational connection with and you find out like they're struggling with things and you're able to be God's presence in their life. So I yeah, Do you get what I'm affirming?

Mac: 53:22

Like these are places of mission rather than the church. Creating a baseball league in order to get people to come to our church Like you're at the baseball league and be on mission there, but when that baseball league like replaces church community, that is, I think, the problem we're starting to name.

Katie: 53:40

Yep Right, it's not a sacred secular divide. Oh, when you're at church, you're in the sacred and that's just secular. So don't think about it. It's actually all of it is on mission, but in order to be living on mission, it's pretty important to have a hub.

Mac: 53:52

Yeah, that's right, and I would even say, given all these statistics we've named, it's going to become increasingly important, given that less and less people are just going to show up to a service on Sunday, that our everyday, ordinary people live on mission in these spaces. Like you're part of the future, of reaching this current generation.

Katie: 54:10

Yeah, yeah.

Mac: 54:11

But here's the challenge and, katie, you and I heard this challenge. We were talking to our good friend Michael Bender who's?

Mac: 54:18

a professor up at Luther and we were talking about some of these dynamics and he just said most people are leaving churches for flimsy reasons. It's way easier to stop going to church than it is to stay committed at a church. Like it's relatively easy to not go to church. Eugene Peterson tells a story about a guy who was like when he planted his church there, from day one, super plugged in, super invested, involved all the way through, like eventually building a building and like all of it several years, invested, day in and day out, and then one season just stopped showing up. So Eugene Peterson called him like maybe a month or two after not seeing him. I was like, hey, I haven't seen you. What's going on? And he's like well, I decided to go fishing on a Sunday morning and I decided I like that better. So the reason why he de-churched is because he discovered fishing is fun.

Josiah: 55:15

Yeah, well, and I thought of something, and it will probably be a little bit of a preview into our next episode, but if church was primarily just a place for you to attend on Sunday morning, and that's what it meant to be, a part of a church community to you which you know without assigning blame or fault, then busy schedules just become the last straw.

Josiah: 55:41

Yeah, so it's. You're not actually prioritizing making sure I'm connected in a community or the hub, as you said, and getting my life input and relationships and all these things. When church isn't that and a kid has a sporting event on the weekend, why would I prioritize, like, why would I prioritize that when this other thing requires a lot more investment from me? Yeah, if all church was to me was attendance on a Sunday morning, then it's very easy to see why that would lower on priority for me.

Katie: 56:17

Yeah, I think that's such a good point, because if you're in that category well, I used to go to church and now I don't because I have these other things Then I would really want to look back at what was church. How were you orienting the church when you were going? Because, man, I see a lot of my own story in this as I look back. When we moved to Oconomowoc from Madison five or six years ago, I was commuting from Oconomowoc to Madison five days a week. I was gone 10, 11 plus hours a day. I had toddlers at home.

Katie: 56:47

I mean, I was exhausted and we made it to church every Sunday, but I did not have the margin to do much outside of that. I wanted to do groups and serve and all these other things, but I just didn't have the margin for it. But I yearned for it. I remember praying like God help me find margin. I want to be more plugged in, I want to be more deeply invested. I just I don't know how, but I think that's because I had experience of what church could be and it's a beautiful thing. And so I just think, man, those other areas I was giving my time could never do what church could do for me, like God just doesn't meet you there in the same place.

Mac: 57:26

Yeah, I think what I hear you guys saying is is, if church is just about attending a service on the weekends, well then it's pretty easy when busyness creeps up to just kind of like lose that. But if it's, if it's about doing life with a group of people in the way of Jesus and being part of the work God's doing in the world, well that's, that's different.

Mac: 57:48

Like what was the substance of your church experience or involvement frames things in a significant way, and I think the challenge that I'm trying to calibrate, if it's just about these shifting priorities, is that we're living in a culture of disordered desires and misplaced priorities, and I see a lot of people de-churching who are actually falling victim to those disordered desires and misplaced priorities, living vicariously through their kids, consumerism, greed, whatever it is. I'm going, man, the thing you're pivoting out of is just a cultural accommodation. You know what I mean.

Katie: 58:27

Fishing's great, yeah, but it will never give you what doing life together in deep, meaningful, jesus-centered community.

Josiah: 58:34

Yeah, yeah. And it's not worth demonizing the thing, it's not worth saying hey, baseball's evil. No we need to start speaking out against baseball leagues Right, because you're naming that when you are coming from a place of like this is my community. I'm following Jesus. Now I walk into the baseball as the coach, being the church, being the church out in the community, which is like the whole point.

Josiah: 58:58

Yeah, right, right right and fishing, Fishing. I don't fish often, but when I go it is such a forced time of sitting out in nature and doing nothing else. I'm often connecting with my brothers and my family. I get away, I unplug from the cares and worries of life and I often experience God's presence in those moments. So fishing is not the issue. Fishing could be used as a wonderful vehicle for connecting with God and for devotion and for all these other types of things.

Mac: 59:28

The problem isn't the activity. The problem is the priority you're putting on the activity right In terms of the time and all of that and the way you're engaging it.

Josiah: 59:37

Yes, and your heart is the thing that God is actually after. So I know people who are a part of our church, who live very busy lives but are very connected to this community, and there are plenty of Sundays where it's like, oh, I miss them and you often wonder oh, where are they? Oh yeah, that's right, they're traveling for work, or they did have a kid sporting event, and you miss them and they miss you and you find other ways to connect, because it's not just like being here on Sunday morning, it's about connecting.

Mac: 1:00:10

We all have the same amount of time and you make time for what's most important.

Josiah: 1:00:16

Yeah.

Mac: 1:00:17

So church hurt. Deconstruction shifting priorities.

Katie: 1:00:22

Yeah, maybe a related one. I think this is going to be somewhat similar to shifting priorities, but I would just name preferences. There are people who I think have stopped attending because the church just stopped meeting their preferences in some capacity, and we talked about this in our last series. We did an episode on what we called consumerism. But there are different preferences around worship, style preaching I can't tell you how many people have said like, oh yeah, I used to go there because so-and-so preached and now they don't preach as often, or they left or whatever. Just different types of programming, convenience of watching online versus not. Sometimes there's like political preferences.

Katie: 1:01:01

I wish they would talk about this more or that more. And so I think, as with these other categories, like I would affirm something here. Like your time is precious, we're all busy. If you're gonna spend an hour, two plus, each week, you obviously want to go somewhere that you enjoy being and somewhere that kind of aligns with your personality, maybe the denomination you grew up with and helps you connect with God in the way that you're wired. Another thing I would affirm is there are so many options. I think today, especially in Lake Country, if you look around, there are so many churches in this area, so many churches. It's like we have unlimited options and heck. If you don't wanna go to a church, you could just curate your own online church experience by listening to whatever pastor you want. You can pull a sermon from any church across the country, or across the globe, for that matter.

Mac: 1:01:53

Dude. I know one guy who I was recently talking to. Okay, he listens to a preacher in a completely different state, like that's his staple sermon, like for the week. So he listens to some other pastor preach every week. He goes to another church for worship and then goes to a different church for like community and relationships.

Josiah: 1:02:22

Buffet style yeah.

Mac: 1:02:25

So here's what's happening, you guys, is we're living in an individualistic culture or it's all about me and a consumeristic culture, and when you fuse those together, it's really quite scary, because now I can curate my spirituality.

Josiah: 1:02:40

Yeah you have access to anything we want Create your own journey.

Mac: 1:02:44

Right, yeah, and again, some of the trends we see around church growth, even locally, it's just the nonstop influence of consumer Christianity that, oh, this church has this programs and I really like it until I don't, and then I'll go to the next church that has the programs and the preaching and the worship that I like until I don't, and then right.

Katie: 1:03:05

It reminds me of the. Spotify has those like daily mix. Here's your little jazz and a little pop country and a little of this and a little of that.

Mac: 1:03:12

Yes, yeah, and you know again, I think I would affirm, katie, one thing that you said, which is like it's totally reasonable to do your homework on a church.

Josiah: 1:03:23

And to want to enjoy it.

Mac: 1:03:25

To make sure you're reasonably aligned. Yeah, Okay, but I'll say this like maybe some expectation setting here when I was doing some realigning of our staff and actually looking to hire the position you fill, okay, one of the things I did was I created a job description and a candidate profile Like here's the job that this person will do and here's the ideal person that I would want, like the type of person I'd want to fill this role. And I remember the person guiding me through this process said Mac, you have put together an awesome job description and a very thick personality profile or candidate profile. If you were to get 80% of this, that would be incredible.

Katie: 1:04:10

Lower your expectations a bit.

Mac: 1:04:11

Well, it was just some expectation setting Like you did it. You know what you're looking for. If you get 80% of this man, you guys are going to be an awesome team and you're going to crush it. I think I got about 93%.

Mac: 1:04:22

Well thanks, but okay, so when you're looking for a church, like you're not going to get 100% right. So the point is is I would want to validate, given all the options and so on, do your homework, make sure you're reasonably aligned, but know that you're not going to get 100% right. But then the challenge I think I have in this with this reason, is that man consumers make really crummy disciples. I'm just naming it. It's time to stop engaging Jesus with a church like a vending machine of religious goods and services. And what's concerning to me, especially with all the online options, is not just that people can customize their own formation using their smartphone or podcast app or whatever, but it's that they actually can end up stop following Jesus altogether because they're creating a Jesus in their own image. Like it's just way too easy. It's actually in community with people that, like you're challenged to see things differently or you know, journey with people over time, or like like it's essential to the process of formation.

Katie: 1:05:33

Yes, if this is about your preferences, then you're going to have one way of orienting. If it's about your spiritual formation, that looks very different.

Josiah: 1:05:42

Yeah Well, I would say that this affects way more than just church attendance. That would be sort of I guess I would have some empathy that our entire culture, especially in Western culture in America, has been discipled into this, as you're naming, and a byproduct of that has been like it has trickled into the church, especially in the evangelical church model, the church growth model that we've talked a lot about, church planting, all of these things that they're. Honestly, a lot of churches leverage consumerism in order to grow attendance and to have more success. So I guess I would say that it's sort of trickled into church, but our whole culture is just swimming in it. I think it affects relationships, it affects marriages, it affects all these different things, and the challenge is that we need to maybe to use the word deconstruct this notion that church is going to meet all of my preferences.

Mac: 1:06:48

Yeah, so we like again. The deconstruction for me is not just a matter of, like, deconstructing theology or biblical concepts. I'm also a person who spends a lot of time deconstructing the cultural scripts I'm being handed right Like. I want to ask, I want to interrogate the assumptions that are normative in our culture and what you find oftentimes when you do that for instance, maybe individualism and consumerism is that is foreign to the New Testament. You think about the very first word in the Lord's prayer is our Father. It's not my father, yeah, it's our father. There's no imagination, um, in the early church for, like, hey, me and my spirituality living it out by myself, like that is a completely um foreign concept foreign concept.

Katie: 1:07:39

Yeah, yeah. And I think, just to summarize, I think what I hear us saying is that when we learn to lay aside our preferences for the sake of something bigger than ourselves, something really beautiful happens, like it's sort of like the point of doing church.

Mac: 1:07:52

Yeah, Jesus didn't say if you want to be my disciple, come and consume. He used a different C word, which is pick up your cross.

Josiah: 1:08:02

Yeah, all right. Reason number five was added because, as you'll see in a second, it really does fall into its own category. Using some of the machine learning profiles that the book used sort of uncovered that there really is a separate category for people within this category and it makes up a large percentage of people who do not go to church anymore, and it's for one simple reason they moved. So people there is a large amount of people, millions of people all across America stated that I'm still a professing Christian. They would get a score on, essentially, their adherence to some of the basic Christian beliefs and anyway they're an orthodoxy score. Sorry, I was trying to find the word. They're Christian people. They were a part of a church before and they would love to be a part of another one, but they moved and either haven't gotten around to it yet or haven't been able to find one that they felt like they could plug into.

Mac: 1:09:15

Yeah, and I might broaden this reason from move to just like life transitions. That's like a type of transition which is to move from one community to another or whatever. But I'm noticing this I've noticed this in the last like three or four years that there's a like empty nesters. I noticed a lot of people start to find, like find a church, and then deeply plug in when they have kids, because they want their kids to be supported in their faith journey, which is great, right. But then what ends up happening is eventually their kids grow up and so that impetus isn't there anymore.

Mac: 1:09:52

And then when their kids move out of the house, man, they often lose their footing right. They rely on sort of the investment they made years prior and now this church is continuing to change and more, for whatever, they no longer feel as connected as they once did and, apart from finding a way to engage church in their new reality as a couple that no longer has kids in the home, they can flounder and then gradually lose that rhythm. It becomes less and less important and now we no longer have a church. Maybe you add on that. Hey, we now can travel more and we can do all these fun things, but I think, empty nesters. I'm just noticing a lot of couples who go from raising kids to being empty nesters. It's not just a tough time for marriages. Sometimes it also drastically shifts how they're orienting to a church community.

Katie: 1:10:43

Yeah, I see that.

Josiah: 1:10:45

Yeah, and often it goes back to some preferences too, like the ways that they felt really connected to church. Now that they aren't raising kids, they find themselves feeling like they're on the outside of the actual community.

Mac: 1:10:57

Yeah, and there's a lot I would want to affirm here. Like, life transitions are hard. They are and they disrupt rhythms and it can feel disorienting. So for this reason, there's so much I would want to affirm. I get it. There's grace for disruption of rhythms and space and so on, but my challenge is that part of navigating a life transition well is making sure you're prioritizing the things that are most important along the way, and I mean when you have a child, when you go from, like you know, when you have a child, when you go from, like you know, when you have a baby in the house, I would say part of the success of navigating adding a new family member is still figuring out how to prioritize your marriage.

Katie: 1:11:37

Right.

Mac: 1:11:38

It's kind of like that.

Katie: 1:11:40

Yeah, and we have a whole group of people that are kind of in that empty nester phase in our church and we as a church staff kept kind of hearing some similar feelings of just not feeling as connected. People that still came here but just were saying, hey, I'm having a hard time, like some of my friends have left or whatever, and so that group is actually getting together. Right, we have they're calling themselves like the boomers club and now the whole group is getting together and doing like coffee hours and, you know, maybe going through a book, and they're finding a way to support each other and walk together in that season.

Josiah: 1:12:12

Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, yeah, the the moving piece I have had. It's really interesting. Since reading the book, I think I can count at least three different conversations with people I have had who aren't going to church right now and the reason why they're not is because either a major life transition or they moved. Two of them had moved and had dabbled and tried a couple of churches and just never really found the right one and they were very connected before they went all the time.

Mac: 1:12:42

What was wrong? Their worship leader wasn't cool enough, or what. Yeah.

Josiah: 1:12:45

Yeah, his genes were not tight enough? I guess no. But it's interesting that those people are very on the outside, very open and often very vocal about saying, oh, I'd love to go to church, yeah, and they'll ask me about ours, and really there's nothing else to do at that point besides go to church. Yeah, right, there's not a major thing to overcome except making a plan and then going, and so the challenge would be you're not going to find a new church home at home?

Josiah: 1:13:26

Yeah, you're going to need to leave the house and you're going to need to make a plan and you're going to have to commit. This is what I did tell someone who was the husband and wife. They were both on either side of me and they were kind of talking about why they don't go and they both had different church backgrounds and now they have kids and they're trying to figure out like, oh, I went to this one, I didn't really like it, all this kind of stuff. The challenge was you can't just visit a church once and know everything they're about.

Josiah: 1:13:54

So pick one and attend for a certain amount of time and then see what happens.

Mac: 1:14:00

Yeah, and see what the spirit of God is doing. You know what I mean. Instead of just approaching a church, going, hey, do I like the religious goods and services, find a church where you sense the spirit of God is doing something and then join that work. That's the key. All right, it is Praxis time. Welcome to the Praxis podcast. There's a button for that.

Josiah: 1:14:22

Yeah, right.

Adam: 1:14:23

That's good, nope. Nope Praxis podcast there we go, there we go, found it.

Mac: 1:14:29

So let's shift gears and get some practices in place. Like, if you're listening to this conversation, what can you do, like concretely, and I'll start us out. So practice number one is to get compassionately curious. The biggest takeaway perhaps if you're listening to this conversation is when you consider this category of people of de-churched. Not everybody has de-churched for the same reason, and we haven't even named all of the reasons. We've just named five of them, and so your first move is always to get curious with the person who has de-churched. Why have you de-churched? Right? Get curious and notice. Compassionately curious. In other words, avoid that reactivity where you are anxious that they're no longer a part of a church or you feel compelled to like defend why you go to church or insist upon why it's important. Avoid making blanketed statements or assumptions. Don't be judgmental, right? Stay curious, ask questions and your primary focus should be being safe, a safe person who is non-reactive and validate as much as you possibly can, right?

Mac: 1:15:38

That's the first pivot and I've got countless stories where I've been able to do that. I've just listened and asked questions, tried to remain non-defensive or non-reactive. Thank the person for sharing their entrusting part of their story to you, and oftentimes they're just shocked because I'm a pastor they know that.

Mac: 1:15:57

And especially when I start to validate some of their reasons like yeah, I see that and that's not right. Or man, that is painful, I'm sorry, right, they're just kind of blown away by that. And so I think there's so much potential and opportunity in these conversations if we can just relate to them with compassion and curiosity.

Katie: 1:16:19

And, I would add, and do so for the genuine desire of relating to them and affirming their story right, not just going. Okay, here's a new tactic. I'm going to try to get them back in church, like no, these are people with real stories and we should do that, regardless of where it leads.

Mac: 1:16:30

Yeah. So here's the, here's the thing, and I'm okay, let's just name it. If you're concerned about these, these 40 million people have de-churched. It'd be easy to go okay, what do I, what? What do we do to get them back? Well, in this first practice of getting compassionately curious is actually, you need to attend to your own transformation. You need to become the kind of person who can hold space with those in this category, non-defensively, non-reactively, with genuine curiosity.

Katie: 1:17:01

And no agenda and no agenda Like.

Mac: 1:17:03

the first move is for you to become the kind of person who can be on mission well.

Katie: 1:17:08

Yeah, it's a good word.

Josiah: 1:17:10

Yeah, love it.

Katie: 1:17:12

Yeah, another practice would just be to pray for these people, pray for the de-churched people in your life. Ask God to open doors for relationship with people If you don't currently have them, or if you do, just pray, I mean, spend some time and lift up their names and faces and stories and ask God to open doors for you to be in conversation with them. If you do sense any frustration or judgment, like maybe you're listening and you notice that bubbling up in you, ask God to soften your heart Again. I think what you just said, mac. This is primarily about our own transformation. I think that's really important and let's just remember that it's not ultimately our work that's going to redeem the church's witness in the world. Like we can try with all our might, but we're not gonna be able to restore and redeem this mess that we're in. It's going to have to be God at work in and through us, and so I think we pray for that.

Mac: 1:18:05

So can we like yeah, piggybacking on that, broaden it. Yes, it is praying for those who have de-churched, that you know in your life and that God would be at work and that you would notice opportunities to join in, but it's also let's pray for the church, because part of the reason people have walked away from the church is because we've had an abysmal presence and we need to be transformed. And so let's pray for our transformation, that we would be changed and become the kind of people who can do this work. Yeah, that's a good word.

Josiah: 1:18:33

Yeah, that's good. Yeah, last practice I would name is to identify your why. And this does kind of set up what the next episode is going to be, is going to be. But it'd be good for you to, if you are a part of a church, now find some ways of identifying what your reasons are for belonging to a church community. And this is like one step further than just why do I follow Jesus? Obviously that's important too, so we're assuming that. But why is it important for me to be a part of a church community? What would I be missing out on if I didn't?

Mac: 1:19:08

Free coffee on Sundays Donuts once a month.

Josiah: 1:19:15

Yeah, having a bit of a stump speech goes a long way. I've noticed that in some of these conversations I played in a softball in an extra softball league this summer and got to build a lot of relationships with people. None of them are churched at all, but I did notice that a lot of conversations came up and being able to name like, affirm, like yeah that sucks.

Josiah: 1:19:41

I don't like that either. About church, and here's why I'm a part of one. That either about church, um, and here's why I'm a part of one. And being able to name that goes a long way to having openness within relationships with people. Um, yeah, so if you're listening to this and you're a part of a church, now a practice you could be is like, come up with your own little stump speech and don't make it fake. Like authentically, why are you a part of a church community, um, and why, why is that important to you?

Josiah: 1:20:08

And if you're listening to this and you have de-churched, ask yourself if some of these reasons resonate with you, like, find out, hey, where categorically am I? And what would it look like to invite the Holy Spirit to lead you to a next step of some sort? And what would it look like to invite the Holy Spirit to lead you to a next step of some sort, whether that's finding you know, if you're in the life transition part and you're like I have, I've just been enjoying sleeping in and not doing stuff on Sunday and I kind of want a church and you know well, then I would suggest that maybe the next step is go find one, Go start.

Katie: 1:20:45

Make your pancakes a little earlier.

Josiah: 1:20:47

Yeah.

Mac: 1:20:48

Yeah, all right. Well, big picture, you guys. We are not in Kansas anymore. The religious landscape is shifting dramatically, as droves of people who were once part of a church no longer are, and the point of today was to simply name many of the reasons, some of the core reasons why people are de-churching and validate and challenge some of those, while also attending to our own transformation.

Katie: 1:21:16

Yeah Well, thanks for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Next time we'll continue the series on the great de-churching. We'll focus on what people are missing out on when they are disconnected from a church community.

Adam: 1:21:29

So if you enjoy the show, consider leaving a review, and if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. Wherever you get your podcasts.