There’s been a lot of chatter lately about the causes and the effects of dechurching in the United States over the past 25 years, prompted by an informative book by Michael Graham and Jim Davis, The Great Dechurching, which contains research on why people have left the church and includes suggestions for how to woo them back. I interviewed Graham, Davis, and Ryan Burge for an episode of my podcast Reconstructing Faith on the dechurching phenomenon because this is a hot topic among the pastors and church leaders I meet across the country.
In all the talk about dechurching, there’s a related question that deserves more attention: Why does anyone go to church? Often, we’re so interested in figuring out why people don’t attend that we forget to probe the reasons they do. What’s in it for them?
Why Do You Go to Church?
Just as there isn’t a simple answer to why people leave the church (as The Great Dechurching demonstrates), neither is there a one-size-fits-all answer to why people attend. If you were to survey your congregation or engage in deeper conversation with your fellow church members, I bet you’d be surprised at the variety of reasons given.
It’s easy for church leaders to think everyone on a Sunday morning is there for lofty, theologically robust reasons. They want to hear a Word from the Lord. They know they’ll encounter God through our stimulating worship experience. They’re here to bring glory to God by obeying his instruction to gather for worship. In reality, the reasons people go to church are often more down-to-earth.
The Regulars
One reason people attend church is out of sheer force of habit. In an article for The Lamp, Matthew Walther argues that “the most common reason” Catholics go to Mass “is that it is simply what one does, like voting in presidential elections or serving turkey on Thanksgiving.” You go to church just like you go to the grocery store, or to the mall, or to your local high school’s football games. We go to church because, well, that’s what we do, and that’s what we’ve always done.
There are still pockets in the U.S. where church membership is assumed, where asking someone in the neighborhood, “Where do you go to church?” isn’t unusual or off-putting. The Regulars see churchgoing as a habit, an important routine for social cohesion and family stability. If the trends are correct, the Regulars are getting older. Fewer young people fit this category. These are the parents and grandparents who show up on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day with children and grandchildren in tow, hoping the routine will rub off on their heirs.
The Responsibles
A second reason people go to church is because they’re involved in some way. I call these the “Responsibles.” They’re ushers or deacons, or they teach Sunday school, or they keep the nursery, or they sing in the choir, or they volunteer for parking duty, or they belong to a small group where their absence would be noticed. Why do they go to church? Because they’ve got a responsibility to fulfill.
In an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, Ray is shamed by his parents and family for not attending Mass. Eventually, he reconsiders his reluctance toward churchgoing and decides to follow in his father’s footsteps and start attending again, only to discover his dad really goes to church every Sunday because he collects the offering and enjoys time with his church buddies when they do the counting.
The Respectables
A third reason people go to church is for the social benefits that accrue to family life. I call these “The Respectables,” because they believe the church is there to help them and their children develop and maintain a moral instinct. Church is a place of moral respectability, a connection to like-minded people who share the same values.
Christian Smith and Amy Adamczyk’s Handing Down the Faith features extensive research into families where the parents have successfully transmitted the faith to their children. In their interviews, again and again, words like “grounding” and “base” and “foundation” came up. The Respectables believe churchgoing is what gives their kids a moral grounding that will set them up for a good life. It offers something that helps them be good, moral, decent people. (This is why parents will frequently send their teenage children to youth group meetings and church camps when they rarely attend themselves. They think they’ve already undergone the moral formation the church is there to deliver.)
The Reachers
A fourth reason some people go to church is that they’re searching for truth. Every week in churches across America, you’ll find people who are spiritually seeking but not yet committed to the faith. They’re reaching for something beyond themselves. They’re interested in the Christian faith and its teachings. Most of them visit when invited by someone in the other categories, but some will wander into a church on their own or take the step of attending after doing some research online.
The Reachers are the smallest category here, simply because churchgoing is often a later step in their spiritual journeys, not one of the first. But we’d be remiss to overlook them.
The Resolute
Last but not least, you have those whose faith is marked by firmness and determination. These are the churchgoers whose lives most obviously bear the fruit of regeneration, whose hearts are alive in an evident way to the work of the Spirit through his people.
In stressing the passion and commitment of the Resolute, I don’t mean to imply the people in the first three categories are all unbelievers. The human heart is complicated, and it’s safe to say no one attends church solely for biblical reasons. But the Resolute are the most devout in terms of seeing churchgoing through a biblical lens.
The Resolute gather with believers because they love Jesus and his people, because the New Testament commands it, because they long to hear God’s Word preached, because they yearn to meet Christ at the Table, because they need the God-centered reorientation that worship can provide, because they cannot conceive (rightly) of a life of following Jesus that doesn’t include his Bride, because they know the family of God is essential, not optional, for spiritual formation.
Too many pastors and church leaders think the majority of people attend for the reasons most closely associated with this devout group. It’s more likely a congregation includes people from all five categories, at varying levels of spiritual maturity. People may also belong to multiple categories: the Regulars who are also Responsibles, and so on.
Future of Churchgoing
What does this mean for the future of churchgoing?
We’ll likely continue to see a decrease in the Regulars category, simply because a generational shift is taking place and fewer “churched” people go every week as they’ve always done.
Among the Responsibles, we can expect continued decline, simply because as dechurching continues and as our society grows more isolated, there are fewer needs to address, fewer services and activities taking place, and, therefore, fewer places to plug in and fulfill an obligation.
Among the Respectables, a good chunk will leave the church if the social price is too steep, when holding to Christianity’s moral vision puts them out of step with mainstream society. But there’s a sizable number here who, in response to the craziness of contemporary culture, may dig deeper roots into their faith and see the church as a source of moral sanity, and therefore draw closer. The sexual revolution will have its casualties in need of healing.
Among the Reachers, we could see an increase in the spiritually curious attending church, but this depends on the warm and hospitable spirit of believers and the intentional ways churches and leaders acknowledge the Reachers’ presence and provide wisdom and guidance.
The Resolute will remain, and if cultural shifts continue, this group may become the majority at some point. The question is, Will they be successful in reproducing themselves in the next generation? Will the Resolute find and invite more of the Reachers who are open to considering Christianity?
Good News for Church Leaders
All this is preliminary thinking as we consider why people attend church. I welcome others to build on or critique these categories.
For now, a word for pastors and church leaders. If you’re disappointed to discover that the reasons some people attend your church line up more closely with the first three categories, don’t miss the silver lining. They’re in your church. That’s a start! Meet people where they are and then shepherd them toward the Resolute category.
To do this, we must trust the work of the Spirit through the power of the gospel. Through the gospel, the Spirit convicts and compels nominal Christians and brings about genuine conversion. Through the gospel, the Spirit makes obedience not just a duty but a joy. Through the gospel, the Spirit frees our hearts for service, not from a place of self-importance but from neighbor love. Through the gospel, the Spirit enables us to stand without fear when the world jeers at our beliefs. Through the gospel, the Spirit matures and sanctifies us so our reasons for gathering with God’s people increasingly align with his.
The more our communities give off the fragrance of Jesus, the more it’ll make sense for someone to say, “I want to go to church.”
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