There is an abundance of books, strategies, and research on two large groups of unchurched Americans. It is my thesis and subject for future research that one group that is increasing its distance from churches has not been adequately studied or pursued by church leaders.
For that reason, this article will examine the group I call the nomads. As background, I’ll briefly review the more common unchurched groups: the nones and the nominals.
The Nones
The nones represent those American adults that self-identify as having no church affiliation. A recent Pew Research study garnered much attention when it noted that the number of American nones had grown from 15 percent of the population to 20 percent of the population in the past five years. One major factor behind the growth of the religiously unaffiliated is generational replacement, the gradual supplanting of older generations by newer ones. The newer generation has a smaller portion of their numbers who have some type of religious affiliation.
The total number of nones in America is 46 million adults. This number also includes 13 million people who identify themselves as agnostic and atheist. The remaining 33 million adults simply say they have no religious affiliation.
Most research and strategies for churches to reach the unchurched have dealt with reaching the nones. There are, however, two other groups that are largely neglected.
The Nominals
About 80 percent of the American adult population has some religious affiliation. But over half of that group states they attend church monthly, yearly, seldom, or never. I call that group the nominals. Churches would do well to reach out to this group that is self-identified as both religious and relatively inactive in churches.
Church leaders often call these persons “CEO” Christians, meaning that they typically show up on “Christmas and Easter only.” Though church leaders intuitively know there are large numbers of these persons to reach, few develop strategies for doing so.
The Nomads
From my perspective, the nomads are one of the most neglected groups by church leaders. The reason we neglect them is simple: we see them often so we don’t think of them as unchurched. From a definitional perspective they are not truly unchurched. The nomads instead are wandering from a high level of church commitment to a lower level.
Let me offer a simple example. Let’s assume you are in a church of 200 members where everyone shows up every week. Obviously, the attendance is 200 if there are no guests included. Now let’s assume the attendance pattern of these members changes to where they miss one Sunday out of four. Now the attendance has dropped 25 percent to 150 with a relatively slight change of behavior: missing just one Sunday out of four.
It is my thesis that much of the attendance drop in churches today can be explained by the commitment and attendance behavior of church members. Simply stated, a large part of church decline can be explained by members attending less frequently. What church leader has not dreamed of all of their “active” members showing up at one time? Intuitively these leaders know that less frequent attendance patterns are hurting their churches.
My thesis is anecdotal and unproven at this point. There is no objective evidence that points to a decline in those reporting they attend church weekly or more. Most of the studies include categories that jump from weekly attendance to monthly attendance. So those who attend two or three times a month see themselves as attending weekly rather than monthly. They consider themselves weekly active church members even if they are attending slightly less than they have in past.
It is my contention that less frequent church attendance of some of our most committed members is a real and present challenge before church leaders. Anecdotally, I see the baby boomer generation Christians being at the forefront of this change. As they move into retirement or just have more free time, they are more likely to be somewhere other than church on Sunday.
I hope to have more objective research on this issue in the future. In the meantime, church leaders would do well to see if this issue is a real and present threat at their churches. If so, what types of strategies should we attempt for reclaiming the nomads to a higher level of commitment?
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Good question. It brings up another.
To what extent does church attendance reflect commitment to God’s kingdom? Undoubtedly, some nomads just would rather be somewhere else besides church on Sundays. Playing golf or tennis or out on the boat. Or just sleeping in. That implies a low commitment to the body of Christ. But some might be engaged elsewhere, someplace where God has led them.
And maybe there are other possibilities.
Certainly we should avoid “forsaking the assembling of ourselves together”. But there are times when a committed Christian will be called by God to another place when he would normally be at his home church. Examples would be someone consulting with another church, or preaching/teaching at a conference, or ministering to someone in urgent need. I wonder how you could account for this factor in your research. Do you think it’s significant enough to address?
I would love to see your deeper research and work on this topic. It sounds like a great book.
David -
Your questions are excellent, and I need to do more research to answer them with objective data. I am most concerned by what I see as a deterioration of attendance patterns in the most committed members. I think the research will show, regardless of how the questions are answered, that this trend is accelerating from previous years.
Thanks for the good feedback and questions.
George -
I am indeed inclined to pursue a significant research project in this direction. I am reluctant to conduct the research by asking church members to identify their attendance patterns. I fear, for example, that those members who attend three out of four Sundays will consider themselves every-week attenders. I would do better to see if I can get data from churches that track attendance of individual members. Such is a more complicated, arduous, and expensive task though.
You asked a good question on how I would publish the data. It really boils down to preferences of the readers. I would have to get an idea if it would be preferred as a book, a PDF download, a series of blog articles, a press release, or other options. I’ll just have to see what doors open.
Thanks for the request.
At my last church I worked hard to build attendance. I told the people (over and over) that there were two ways for attendance to grow. The first is for more people to come. Obvious, isn’t it? But the second is for those who do come to come more often. This was less obvious, but just as important. We made some progress, but not as much as I would have liked. Even here in rural E Texas, a highly churched area, the baseball games, and dance & cheer competitions took the young families away regularly. And the retired folks who were still health always wanted to go see grandchildren.
I happened on your website by way of a Twitter suggestion. I found your research interesting and I thought about my own attendance habits, as well of others in my generation, and demographic.
My thoughts drifted to what I have learned about human behavior and it goes like this. Our dominate drives are to avoid pain and seek pleasure. What can complicate this dynamic duo of sorts, is that human beings can often endure long periods of pain, in the guise of feeling guilty. This especially pertains to sporadic church attendance.
I then remembered some research I found as I prepared a report for one of my business clients. It indicated the main reason for underperforming workers was they did not feel they were connected to the core of the business. What this means is they did not feel their contributions were understood or recognized as being an important part of what actually made the business work….thrive….become profitable. Or in other words, their presence was not important to the business, at least that was the dominant perception.
Hopefully my feedback will be helpful for your readers.
All the best to you,
Sable
You are 100% correct about the nomads. Our church averages about 280. I would estimate we have 500 people who consider themselves active members. You will see a one person gain in attendance for every three you baptize!
Sports, school activities, frequent weekend getaways, sleeping in . . . the list goes on. We decry our current administration for suppressing religious freedom yet we are terrible stewards of the freedom He has granted. Maybe that’s why the Lord is allowing our freedom to be siphoned away, right under the nose of a church sound asleep.
I primarily attribute it to the individuality that is ingrained in our American culture. The epicenter of life is me. The greater good is me. The church is about me.
It is often said that “the church doesn’t disciple people.” It is seldom said that you cannot disciple a man who has no desire to be discipled. Isn’t that what it ultimately comes down to?
Thanks for a great article!
The challenging trend is we have splintered attendance. Those who attend 3 out of 4 Sundays, some 2 out of 4 and others 1 out of 4. On major emphasis Sundays(non Holiday Sundays) throughout the year we see our attendance increase 30-40%.
As we engage in conversation we discover they consider themselves regular and active attendees. For this group church is important but shares time with other important activities in their lives. Simply, church is not a Sunday priority but rather one choice of activities.
With hundreds in attendance it is easy to miss a Sunday and not be missed.
Please pursue this line of research.
Another possibility for some of these occasional attendees is that there is a caregiving or family/personal emergency that has occurred. I have a friend who cares for her Mom on Sundays because ‘help’, even paid help, is harder to find on weekends. Most churches I’ve been to in recent years do a poor joy of following up a person’s absence. I realize for some members not attending every weekend is the beginning of stepping away from their commitment to the church, but for some it is not. None of the categories mentioned covers this caregiving group, yet I imagine in a church with an aging membership this might include a ‘large’ number of the sometimes absent.