Transcripts For CSPAN2 Jim 20240703

Out. Thank you. Welcome to the Cathedral Church of saint. My name is justin holcomb. Im the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of, Central Florida. And this is our we have lots of people from around Metro Orlando in the room and we are thrilled that you are here some of you are churched some of your church, some of you are unchurched for some us, its complicated regardless of your attendance, we are thrilled that youre here for the church event named after this book, which youll hear more about in just a little bit. But this is vital for to first 40 Million People in the past 30 years have left the church and half of them are willing to come back. And we need to find out why they left and why are they willing to back. And and so that theyre not just numbers, though thats the thing that youre here because you want to hear about this but these are people it could be you these are friends, family, neighbors and, coworkers. Youre going to hear a lot numbers tonight. And those numbers important, but the numbers are also and people who are made in the image of god in hearing their voice is really important to honor them and listen to him. So were here to listen to the ample, amplified voice of the church and jim and are helping amplify their voice. The second is because the goal is not just to get people back into a building so they can give money or vote a certain way. The reason this is so important to welcome people back who have left is because god as many people as possible to hear his great news which is that in christ he was reconciling the world to himself. Jesus christ said, that that god so loved the world and that he sent his only son so that anyone who believes in him not perish to have everlasting life. And the sun was not set into the world to condemn the world, but that through the sun, the world might be saved. Thats why its so vital. And ive known our speakers for years. Were actually our families, our friends, our children go to the same school weve been serving orlando for four years as ministers. We started podcast together and theyve been guest lectures in my apologetics class on numerous occasions. So im inviting friends to come up, but my friends are now experts from whom i will learn, which is an absolute blast. So let me give you the the technical about them. So jim davis is the pastor, the teaching pastor at orlando grace church. He his modules at reform Theological Seminary. Hes a host of as in heaven podcast and hes the coauthor of the great the churchy. Hes also married angela, who was a counselor here in orlando, and they have forged Michael Graham is the Program Director for the keller of cultural apologetics. He also received his mba from reformed Theological Seminary. Hes the executive producer of the podcast, as in heaven and he is the other co author and. Just so you know, the title, you cant read the thing is the great ditch searching, whos leaving . Why are they going and what will it take to bring them back . Hes married to sarah and they have two children and they live in orlando. Please me in welcoming jim davis and Michael Graham. Thats. A funny photo. Thank you, justin, for that really warm and gracious introduction and thank you church, Cathedral Church of saint luke for hosting this event in this amazing building, this beautiful place. And thank you. Just being a faithful witness in downtown for a very long time. I think that especially pertinent to this group is to understand that this research was birthed out of the story of Central Florida. So i grew up in Central Florida, in orlando Third Generation might, grew up in orlando. And if you were here in orlando in the nineties and early 2000, it had feeling like it was becoming a christian mecca of sorts. So it didnt matter what your denomination denominational space you could be if youre in the mainline space, the second largest mainline church in the United States was here in downtown. If you were in the evangelical baptist realm, First Baptist church was booming and. Their pastor was president of the southern baptist. If youre in the nondenominational space, joel hunter is pastoring northland church, 20,000 people on the cutting edge of church technology. In many ways, if you were well and then his son planted a church in downtown orlando that was arguably the coolest church in town, baptizing magic players like dwight howard. And if you were in the charismatic space, we may forget benny hinn was here paula white was here, an institution these major christian organized nations began to relocate to orlando, florida. So in the nineties reformed Theological Seminary came here campus crusade for christ. The Largest Church Missions Organization in world, relocated to orlando and then a litany of other ministries like ligonier pioneers, wickliffe and others began to relocate their headquarters here. Well. Well, fast forward to a bahner report in 2017 and we learn that the orlando metropolitan area a seven county area has the same percentage of evangelical ills as new york city and seattle. And so mike and i were really affected by that report and began to think through orlando and began to think through why is it that we feel so much different than new york city and seattle . And it wasnt to see that the majority of people who we interacted with who did not go to church used to so in new york city and seattle is very different. People have grown up their whole life, maybe never even been inside a church, but a lot of the people in had been had grown up in a church been invested in the church and for whatever reason no longer went. So we wanted to understa and more about this we wanted more data. We wanted to the scope of it, which we soon found it was not just an orlando phenomenon what was going on in was paradigmatic for the entire United States. The problem is that there was no Real Research church that we could bank we were doing on anecdotally. You heard that Bishop Holcomb over here. He teaches apologetics at reform Theological Seminary. My wife took his class. She was getting her counseling degree there and she wanted to do her Research Paper teaching. And justin said, thats great, but theres no research. You cant do a Research Paper if theres no research. So this got our wheels turning and we decided to commission the most comprehensive nationwide academically Peer Reviewed quantitative study. Thats a mouthful ever done on churches in the United States. We commissioned social scientists dr. Ryan birge and dr. Paul joop to do this study. We raised about 100,000 to do this study, and we learned a lot from the study there were over 7000 participants in the study over 600 data points. There were three different phases to the study and the first study, the was to prove or disprove this thesis we are currently in the largest and fastest religious shift in the history of our country and we proved it. So we proved it as said by learning that over million adult over the past largely 25 years have stopped going to church. Now its important to know the way we define a churched person is that somebody who used to go to church least monthly and now to less than one time per year. So to put this in perspective, if were going to go at it by a percentage previously the largest religious shift in the history of our country was were the 25 years postcivil. There was at least a 12 uptick in that 25 year period in the number in the percentage of churchgoers in the United States our current religious shift the past 25 years is 1. 25 times greater than. That one just going the opposite direction in terms of numbers. It larger than the first great awakening, the second great awakening. And every billy graham crusade combined. So that thats the part that initially we want to land the United States is in middle of the largest and fastest religious shift in the history of our country. Then we wanted to know who is determining, who are these people and . If you if you just Pay Attention to what you see in the news and on social media, you would think, well, the Church Person had a really bad experience. Church, this person has converted completely probably is wrestling through gender identity and sexuality, sexual ethics that may be different than the church. And while that that those types of church certainly exist. Do you want to know the number one reason for searching in america . I moved. I moved we actually found that of the 40 million adult americans who have left church, 30 million of them did so without any pain point. So at the highest level then began to understand okay. Some people left with a pain point, about 10 million americans. But 30 million didnt. So we began to distinguish between these two groups and we called one the deep church casualties and they have the pain point and the other 30 million americans as we called the casual church they moved they had Life Transitions. They got divorced they had children. Their children grew up. And they were consumed in travel, sports. The children had their activities, church became inconvenient for whatever reason. And of course, then there was covid people stopped going to church depending on what state you lived in, anywhere from 3 to 18 months, people, new rhythms, new habits. Many people during that time which combined find are just more and more reasons for this casually deep church group to increasingly grow now in the church casual tea. Some are christians, some are not. Were to show you more about that in the casual church realm, some are christians are not. As best we can tell. But what we really to see is that the Church Person is not a monolithic profile. And so we wanted to, in our third phase of our study, dial in even deeply. And so we use something called Machine Learning. Its good know this this isnt just two pastors putting their finger up in the air or polling you know our 200 best friends are doing a facebook poll we had a Machine Learning algorithm mind these massive amounts of data that we had to compare common answers and help to understand who is the searching in more granular detail and all that might take it from there. So yeah machine, learning is just a fancy word to say. This is how we efficiently and without bias introduce dos people who had very clusters of answers, choices of why they did church, what kind of demographics they are, how much willingness that they have return to the church and what reasons why they might return to the church. And so were going to talk five different profiles here. Were going to go through these things relatively. Were going to first cover four different types of Church Evangelii and then were going to cover the and Roman Catholic church together. Now whats interesting to note about the mainline Roman Catholic and why were going to cover the cover, those together is by and large the mainline and Roman Catholic people who did churched look very similar in just about every category. Now, the main difference between the mainline and Roman Catholic church would be the Catholic Church were a little bit more sensitive to scant clergy scandal in the world. And you know, if youre familiar all with the history and, you know, films spotlight and these kinds of things can understand why and then the mainline church were a little bit more sensitive to moving as jim mentioned, the very top choice for why people did church. And so, without further ado, going to start, though, with the four different types of church evangelicals now imagine with me here for a moment, the first profile cultural christians now theres 15 million of the 40 Million People who did churched who out of evangelical churches the Roman Catholics and mainline together are about 20 million. So but cultural christians this is about million of the 15 Million People who left. Imagine with me the cultural christian. Youre about 40 years old. Your male. You were probably never a christian and life seemed to be working well for you didnt necessarily have a big problem with the church and just kind of moved on from church about decade ago and so the cultural christians this is a group of people they didnt necessarily have a big issue with the church by and large theyre in that that cultural that casual Church Category now necessarily a lot there looks catastrophic the average age of the person who was a cultural a cultural christian who did church is 40 years old and they did church about a decade ago. This group interestingly enough, is almost entirely monoliths actually white and one thing to note, as were going through all of the data here, the learning algorithm that jim referred to we did not allow the algorithm to sort based on race or ethnicity. And so these clusters were developed without the, you know, algorithm have the having the benefit of seeing and well circle back. Well play a little bit of back and forth with that. I think Bishop Holcomb will ask him some questions about that. But its important to note this group is monolithically white, 98 married. These are people who are doing well for themselves. They had above average incomes, above average education, lots of full time work in this group. Now, heres where things start to get interesting in terms of the belief system for this group of people. Now, we developed something that we called an orthodoxy score with respect to all of these different profiles. Heres what we mean by that. Largely what we were for were things like what you would find in the nicene creed, the divinity of jesus, the humanity of the sinless ness of jesus jesuss substitution. Every death, his atonement, the resurrection jesus, the reliability of the bible and the trinity. So this group of people, this profile, the cultural christians, the lowest orthodoxy, score on average, they would answer, you know, accurately relative to nicene creed. About 56 of those, you know, kind of seven questions. Now, heres the kicker. This is why, you know, that this group largely probably are not followers. Christ, only 1 of this group said that jesus is the son of god, 1 . So this is probably not a group of people who are probably serious christians and probably in the faith. And again, this is a little bit over half of the people who left evangelical churches. Interestingly enough, this group is lean center politically. However theyre not necessarily super progressive on like racial justice. America does seem be working well for this group people as well. Okay why did the cultural leave the number one reason and youll see a lot of these casual reasons that jim kind of alluded to was attending, was in convenient the from the top reasons was my friends were not attending Worship Service number three they moved theres some other things in the mix things like suffering wanting to express their gender identity scandal in the in the broader church the broader culture and feeling that church was too restrictive their sexual freedom or things like worshiping online. But by and large, these seem to be issues that seem be a bit more casual in nature. And it doesnt seem that these people were really christians in, you know, in the historic of our creeds and confessions. Now, whats interesting is that almost half 48 of this group said theyd be willing to return to church today. Right now. And so here the top where they said that they would be willing to return, number one, new friends. Number two, lonely and want to make new friends. Three, this is this ones a little bit this ones like the one thats not like the others supernatural phenomena. This is the only the only time any group supernatural phenomenon. Its interesting. I would have to levitate begin to miss church a friend invites me a spouse wants to go move and want to make new friends in a Good Community and. Heres what you see among the cultural christians. Theres tremendous opportunity is there particularly relationally almost all of those things have to do with interpersonal, human. So theres a lot of opportunities with people who have, you know, who fit this this category in this profile. So what is this group people need in order to return to church . The top thing i would say is they need sincere community. They also need interestingly enough, we didnt cover this they need Mental Health help. It kind of surprisingly relative their education, their high education, their high income, their Mental Health was not in a good place, particularly as it pertain to anxiety, depression and loneliness and. Theres a lot more that we we cover in the book, but there actually are Significant Health benefits of. People who go to church on a weekly or greater. You can look at harvard professor tyler vander weise this we talk about it in the book. And the third thing that this group needs is they need sound doctrine in a church that will care about spiritual formation. Spiritual formation is where know we are formed in our head or our in our hands and we grow more into the likeness of christ. In the fourth sense of those things, this group also needs us to do better in terms of how we engage with them while theyre in the 18 to 39 year old age range. Because by and large, theyre, you know, on average theyre detaching around the age of 40. So this is the christians. Now, theres more church evangelical profiles that were going to cover. Each one of these next three groups is about the same size. So were talking about two and a half million or so, more or less each for the next three types of church, two evangelicals. Now the next type of church, evangelii were going to talk about is the main stream evangelical i want you to imagine for a moment not a 40 year old man like the first group, a 40 year old woman, shes a mom, shes married and she did church in the last two or three years. But shes definitely a christian and she loves jesus and she misses church. But she just got out of the habit and she got out of the habit because of maybe she moved or maybe covered or maybe was something with travel sports with the kids or just life got busy but tremendous spiritual sensitivity. So this group is overwhelmingly female they do church very recently within the last three years theres an average income, average education. This group is similar really almost entirely white. However, where things get very different from the first group is this group is very orthodox. They very much understand the core tenets, the nicene creed, in fact, the orthodoxy score of this group is actually better than evangelicals who still go to church. So their score was 86 . I think people still go to church is about 85 among evangelicals. Now, interestingly. Enough 98 of this group said that jesus is the son of god. So thats why we use the Machine Learning algorithm . Because you end up with these clusters that actually make sense. This group also had a really high view the history of the bible. Well, among any among any of the these groups now interesting enough this group is leans center right politically however this group was more sensitive to some of the issues of our day. Maybe you wouldnt have you wouldnt have thought relative to the first group that leans center left this was more sensitive to matters of race in the United States. So interesting stuff. You know when you do data it doesnt always fit super clean narratives, these kinds of things. So thats why actually poll and you know look at these things. All right. So why did the mainstream evangelicals leave. Number one reason, what do you think it is . Bet its i moved. I moved. Okay. Number two, attendance was in convenient. Number three, covid 19 got me out of the habit for divorce remarriage or some other family change or shift. And then the fifth and sixth, you know, all of those are all very casual reasons. Theres a little bit of there in you know, that theres a little bit of relational tension. I dont think its the highest stuff thats there. But you know, there were some people that felt that they didnt fit the congregation and some people who didnt experience much love within the congregation. By and large, it looks like this group largely fits under the category. People who are casually churched. Now, i want to introduce you guys three Different Levels of relational engagement that people might need from us. The first level of relational engagement people might need from us is whos in our life, who just needs nudge. Thats all they need to. Come back to church now. Nudge might look like, you know, texting somebody and inviting them, you know . Hey, will you come to church with me and, you know, grab lunch after, you know, the sunday . Im im doing something interesting. Theres some compelling reason, right . Or, you know, youre at the water cooler with, know a coworker or you talking on the driveway, you know, with eliminated with a neighbor, you know, those are the kinds of things that kind of fit that category of a nudge. You know, these are probably people who are, you know, loved ones, friends neighbors, people who have, you know, longstanding you know, existing relationship with the second category of, you know, level of relationship that you might need to have with somebody is the level of the dinner. Okay. So the dinner level of relationship is some people who have more from the church are going to need from us. Then theres a third category of people who you going to need to be in their for years, if not decades and they probably still wont back to church for a wide variety of reasons and so those are the three levels of relationship that i want to refer to as were talking some of these profiles moving forward. Now when were talking about mainstream evangelicals coming back to church, these are nudge people. They want come back to church. They missed church. Youre going to see that here. When i talk about the reasons theyre going to be willing to come back. The first category that we talked about, a cultural christians, some of those are dinner table folks and some of them are folks. And youll know best because you can exercise wise discernment and you know, the people who are in your lives and you know what different people need. So with respect to evangelicals, why they willing to return number one reason new friends. Number two, reason god tells them to go in a significant way. Three, they find a church that they like for the to miss church. Five they feel the distance god six a good pastor seven lonely and want to make new friends. Eight they find a church that take both doctrine and ethics serious early. Now i want you to i to point out three things that these people are that are important to these folks. Theyre for community. They are looking for a Healthy Church thats going emphasize gospel thats true good in beautiful and theyre looking for a good good as well. So theres a lot of opportunities there relationally and theres a lot of opportunities institutionally. So really theyre just looking for, you know, good friendships and a healthy local church. What do they need us . The thing that this group needs from is they need that nudge. They need somebody to just come along side with, you know, stay with them and just give them that nudge to come back into church. They also need a church context that is going to take doctrine and seriously. I think its good if we challenge some of the distance that somebody might be experiencing from god or maybe church or maybe feeling little bit, you know, that that distance from the lord isnt good because i thats there and then like the first group we need to engage. Well this group in the 18 to 39 year old age range. Third group very different than first two. Again, roughly two and a half Million People. But i want you to imagine me, a new person. Its a woman. Shes 53. She has been very hurt by the church. She had very bad experiences interpersonally in the church. And she probably had bad experiences with the church as an institution. But this person probably actually still has a lot of affection for jesus. Now that this the fan jellicle group. Now, whats interesting about the, you know, the first group, the cultural christians, 48 of them were willing to return to an evangelical church. The second group and i didnt mention this, the mainstream evangelicals, 100 of them were willing to return to an church today. Do you know how many what percentage of the people who are x fan jellicle who are willing to return to an church today are. Zero 0 of these people are willing to return to an evangelical church. Now, the good news is theres a lot of different kinds of churches out, a lot of different traditions, and were going see in a minute that theres actually a lot of spiritual and not all hope is lost, this particular group. But let me not get ahead of myself. This group is struggling in life, not just church theres below average income, theres below average education american institutions are working very poorly for this group of people. The really struggling not just you know with faith, but theyre struggling in every area of life. Theres a low prospect of on, you know, every whether those things are economic political, you know, sociological, educational system, all of those things are very much struggling now. Whats interesting, though, relative to beliefs, they had the second highest orthodoxy score of any of the profiles that were going to look. 70 even further, 97 of this group said, jesus is the son, god, 97 . They also had a relatively view of the bible. Politically speaking, this group was 58 independent. What that settle in for a second,. 58 independent. This group is very allergic to political partizanship. Theyre very allergic to racism. Theyre very allergic to massage me and theyre very allergic to abuse. And so its important and i appreciate the in that we give a voice to people who, you know by and large do seem to still love jesus. But theyve really struggled with their relationship with, the church and whether that was interpersonally institutionally or both it was important for us in this study to give voice to those things. So why did the fan jellicle is leave and youre going to see Different Reasons here. Okay. You know those first two profiles that we looked at, they looked more like the casual church. This group looks almost entirely like a church. Casualties. So number one reason why they left, they didnt fit within the congregation. And number two, they moved. Number three, attendance was inconvenient. But number four, i didnt much love within the congregation. Five, i disagreed with the politics of the congregation. Six negative experi ences you personally had in an evangelical church. Seven i no longer believe the congregation believed and eight i disagreed with the politics of the clergy. So youre seeing a lot of tension here and a lot of friction. Okay. Some of that is interpersonal some of that is institutional now even though 0 of this group was willing to return to an evangelical church, many of these people are willing to return to a Christian Church of some sort. And i think that thats good news. Here we are in a church that loves jesus. Its not in the evangelical. Its in the mainline tradition where i think that, you know, the profile were looking here could easily find a very happy home. So why did this group this group told us what kind what kind of reasons they would be willing to return to a non evangelical church. Heres the top reasons number god tells them to go back in a significant way to they a church that they like three a good pastor. For 21 of them say that theyre never going back okay five they feel distanced from. Six they find a church that cares about justice and compassion for Vulnerable People seven a Good Community. Eight they begin to miss church. So when you look at all of this cluster of reasons why the jellicle group would be to return to church, you see spiritual sensitivity, their sensitivity to god. There is a desire for a healthy, healthy community. Theyre looking for a healthy community, looking for a healthy pastor. Theyre looking for a church, cares about justice and compassion, for Vulnerable People. What good these churches exist and. So its important, i think, to expand jellicle group is easier to identify i think sometimes than than other people because you can hear its easier to see theres pain rather than apathy. And so what did the exmanager locals need they need a non partizan church community. Okay. Remember, 58 of this group dont identify with either. You know, the gop or the the democratic party. They need a church thats going to take doctrine and ethics seriously. The church is going to care for, you know, for vulnerable. Three. They need Mental Health help. Im kind of a geek. Okay i like spreadsheets. I would much be sitting in front of a spreadsheet right now than talking to you. No offense. When i was looking at the spreadsheet here, you know, all these data points and all these people, i go to this one row and this one column and, it was about the level of suicide final thoughts. And there was a scale that you were to rate yourself on 0 to 100 and zero was you were doing very poorly with respect to suicidal thoughts in your life and 100 was you had you had this was not an issue at. All yeah, no, no, no thoughts. Of, you know, you know, suicidal thoughts, radiation. This group, the lowest score of anyone on this category. Do you want to know how they rank themselves on average. Six teen 16 of so to x angelic calls need Mental Health help they also need clergy thats going to be empathetic and as well as an empathetic church community. Our first profile is the bipoc churched. Bipoc stands for indigenous persons of color. Heres what i want you to imagine for this for this profile, a 51 year old African American man who is very successful in either business, law, medicine, and they did churched probably during med school or law. Interestingly enough, this group had the highest income in the highest of any group. And this group was 76 . Africanamerica. And 13 hispanic, latino and 68 male. That means over half of this two and a half million size group of people were africanamerican men. And this group is very mobile. They work very very hard and doing very well for themselves. And American Culture and society in spite of institutions that, largely didnt work well for them. So this group, a lot similar to cultural Christian Group with respect to their orthodoxy score like the cultural christians they dont particularly look and large like theyre christians here today they independent to center left politically not super progressive on like race interestingly enough, heres why they left. Number one reason you have a guess what it is they they moved. Number two faith wasnt working for them. Three, they had other priorities for their time and money. There was some suffering there some that began to doubt gods existence. There was scandal in congregation among the clergy. They didnt see congregation doing enough good in the community and the messages were not relevant to their life. The bipoc looks a little bit like some of the casual reasons in some of the casualty reasons. Theres clearly more friction thats here. Now, bear in mind, this group is 0 white, 100 nonwhite. And again, the algorithm did not have the benefit of seeing ethnicity. Why would this group be willing to return . You know, and like the cultural christians, over half of this are willing to return here today. I 52 . Number one reason new friends to move and make new friends three lonely and want to make new friends for child wants to go five friend invites me a Good Community spouse wants to go feel the distance from god. Six of these eight reasons are relational, okay, it just relational. So what does this group need from us . Well, they need relationship and deep friendship that with people who are embodied and cultural and emotional and intelligence, they also need congregations that are going to care about doctrine and spiritual formation. In this group tended to church earlier than any of the other groups. They they did church in the 13 to 30 year old age range, largely in the late 1990s. Now, heres our profile. This is going to be the mainline and Roman Catholic folks together. And remember the difference. You with the Catholic Church being a little bit more sensitive to clergy scandal in the broader church and then the mainline church being more sensitive to moving now the folks church the first and were talking late eighties all the way through mid nineties is when people were leaving the mainline church the Roman Catholic church were largely early nineties to late nineties. The evangelicals were ditching later largely from the midnineties to now. So heres what i want you to picture. Imagine, you know, this is the mainline Roman Catholics. Imagine a female whos on average in her midfifties and shes white and theres just in terms of of its a mixture of casual and casualty reasons, things like moving to a new community not fitting the congregation political friction other priorities for time and money attendance was inconvenient and not meant not experiencing love within the congregation. Now from an orthodoxy score skin standpoint, this group looks a lot like the cultural christians and the the bipoc group and their average orthodoxy score was 57 . Now heres whats different. 69 of this group said jesus is the son of god. So a little bit better on jesus. 75. Well, yeah, but they had a relatively low view of the bible. Okay. Um, and so theres a, theres some real opportunities there with respect to the bible, this group was the most politically center to left leaning and like to expand our cause. This group was very to racism, misogyny, political partizanship and abuse um, so they left because they moved. They had other priorities, relational friction, the congregation, political friction in the congregation, some doubts to gods existence, inconvenient in other some other casual. Now, what does this group of people need from us . They need word and deed together. They need congregations are in a void misogyny, racism partizan, politics and were going to be sensitive to things like abuse and have systems and structures to try to be preventative of those things. They also need churches that are going to take the historic creeds and confessions seriously. They need nicene creed, christianity. They need sound doctrine. They need spiritual formation. And theyre just theyre just overall across the board. There needs to be a higher regard for the bible. Interestingly enough, what we saw is, the higher the higher a church took bible, the less likely in those contexts people were where the church. So yeah, i mean historically theyre going back to the beginning of the enlightenment movement. You can see efforts in churches to shed certain miracles to, be able to relate to the culture more. Our study shows, the more churches hold on to the historic nicene creed christianity, including miracles the better theyre going to do it from a data point of view. All right. So let me you some some some of the high Level Insights that we learn that we have those categories de Church People are not monolithic. Ive said already that we are currently in the largest and fastest religious shift in the history of the United States. Thats a big deal. And i would argue christians and nonchristians alike should care about that. As a pastor, i care about it because as said in the beginning, these are people these are souls. Even the christians who are no longer attending church. The reality is that the children of the church will most likely be unchurched. And as a pastor, i care about that. But even my agnostic and atheist friends should care about the impact is going to have on the culture in which we live. Live the the gdp of all the people who have left the 40 million is about 1. 4 trillion. So if you take National Giving average of 2. 5 and you apply it to that 40 Million Group of 40 Million People, about 4 billion a year is leaving the church. And so when you think also about the fact 40 of the social safety net in our country comes from churches and religious nonprofits, this is this is going have make a big difference because even though some of the Church People are still giving to those institutions the likelihood their children and grandchildren will is pretty low. So christian or not, this is going to affect a lot of the world that we live in and we would also argue is is going to contribute to the fracture in polarizing of the political conversations that were having. Second, we said this over half of the people who have churched are willing are actively willing to return that was a big shocker to us we didnt realize how many people would still be willing to return. Number three, this is very interesting. Education and churches are inversely you often hear the you know things like well christianity is a poor mans religion. The poorer you are, the more likely you are to believe. And and and once we get educated and make we, we move on. Our study and our state is not only one, but our study does prove the more educated a christian is, especially in the evangelical space, the more likely they are to stay in. So only 3 of evangelical couples with a masters degree have churched 3 . So this news kind of this goes after the myth of the boogeyman of higher secular education, taking our children away for going to college in Education College students, Christian College students who are involved in a church and a campus ministry, they are three times likely to continue in the church office. The overwhelming of people who do church do so between the ages of 13 and 30. So this is a big deal that that is the time where it is most difficult. Maintain your faith in the bipoc group. It was even harder during the ages of 13 to 30. Its hard for everybody, but you have three specific stages there. You have your teenage years which are hard. You have your transition out of your parents home into a college, a vocation thats hard season to maintain your faith. And then right after that if you go to college establishing your professional life getting married that season is the hardest season. And so there are implications talk about that in a little bit about that. And then six, coming back to the the education discrepancy detaching is largely a middle class and low class phenomenon that this is very important for the church to hear the top reasons for people ditching. I moved in transitions so so who gets hit hardest when theres a divorce when kids come expected unexpected who gets hardest in when you lose a job well, the lower class gets hit the hardest then that requires working longer unusual hours. It requires more transition in some cases when there custody issues. So so ditching is the life issues that contribute to deep searching hitting the lower class more significant only. And so we argue that there are some things that the church needs to do to be thinking about the middle to low class and low class, to be able to engage and minister to them more effectively. This is a really interesting and for some people an alarming insight evangelicals are ditching today on the secular right at twice the speed of the secular left. So heres another myth. A myth you hear is its the secular left, this ditch searching. Well currently the secular right is searching at twice the pace. Now some of that is because a lot of the searching has already happened on the secular left. But in terms of numbers, the secular right is caught up. So that goes against a lot of what we understand about the Church Person and. We were going to have some discussion time and we can dive in with justin in a number of these areas. But we want to highlight some of these higher findings. So we spend the latter largely the latter half of the the latter 40 talking about what some things that we as a church do, given this data now as an orthodox christian, i want to introduce know caveats that the bible gives us like we believe the holy spirit needs to do something. The holy spirit opens our eyes. We know the end of the story. So i want to put those caveats. But as people were still called to exercise wisdom. And so there is some wisdom that can be gleaned from this data. The first thing is that we, as Church Leaders and im talking about us, we need to exercise more relational wisdom. And its not just for Church Leaders. I think in some places it starts there, but exercise, relational wisdom, humility, skills of curiously listening. You know, justin and i have talked about if, you know, the term apologetics, the Christian Faith, the apologetic of the of the 21st century, one of the main apologetics are going to be skills that look lot like a counselor. So that kind of relational wisdom invest in student ministry. If 30 to 30 is the hardest time to your faith. And we as a church need to make big and, Big Investments there. We need to be spaces where a child can feel comfortable having doubt and asking people about that doubt. We need to a place where we are grounding what we believe and teaching it in a way its sending them out into world in a way where they know how to live in that world. So thats going to mean it can mean a lot of things in different contexts. We want to invest in that generation. We want to give them space, ask questions. We want to give them real answers. The questions that theyre asking and school and in the transition out of their parents house. Third, prioritize health. As mike said, theres a lot of data that says that those who have regular church, those who regularly attend church, they do find themselves in a better mental space, those who do not, but doesnt mean that weve got the market on Mental Health. Thats right so we need to that and continue to build orlando is unique because we have the largest per capita number of Mental Health professionals of any city in the world. There are 11 institutions in Central Florida pumping out Mental Health degrees. So we have a lot of resources at, our disposal. Now, wed want to filter through some of those resources, but we have a lot of resources to take advantage of connecting to that as a church, we want to lean into a holistic gospel. Mike referenced the phrase a gospel that is true, good and beautiful in the evangelical space i come from, in the 20th century, we put an emphasis on what is true. And you saw this in our sermons and our apologetic methods in our evangelistic. Whats true, true, true. And that often came at the expense of is it good . Is it beautiful . So now fast forward to now what kind questions and opposition do we christians get . Is it ethical it good so it shouldnt surprise us we would argue that the bible jesus gospel is true. It is good and it is beautiful. You go over to the mainline space and. There was a different shift. There was a really there was a strong emphasis on what is good in society. Sometimes among church mainline people, sometimes at the expense, what is true. So we as a church, whatever stream of the Christian Faith come from, we want to embrace the gospel. That is true. That is good and its beautiful because that is what we are given. Five. This may be one of the more uncomfortable of all take aways christians need to be willing to embrace and exalt posture the norm for. Gods people over the history of church. And when i say the church, im going back to israel. Abraham, jeremiah and the early church in the new testament moving on in other areas of the world, the norm for gods people has been a state of exile thats true today in the east and the global east in the global south. So we need to know that that what weve experienced over the past and 50 years, while there are in it has been the norm for gods people. And we to be okay and know that god has been with his people and met them in exile. And we are no different. Six identify a church to mainstream evangelical and invite them back to church. This is the lowest hanging fruit and you dont have to be in an evangelical to do this. Were just saying theres this group of 2. 5 Million People who are 100 willing to come back. We handed a lot of money for study, came out of one church in missouri, columbia, missouri, and we gave them our executive report very early on, said, heres the data. Do what you want with it. They identify they saw this group of eventually became called the church mainstream evangelical group. They identified this group but digitally and personally and in four months they had hundreds of new people in their church, hundreds. And i want to go back to what justin said. Its really important this isnt just to fill up a church or philip coffers, something the children of the church will likely sociologically speaking be unchurched. So this just an investment in the current status of our local church. This is an investment in generations. And then lastly, we as a church coming back to searching, being a lower class phenomenon, maybe a better way to say that is its hitting the lower class more heart harder. Excuse me . Its hitting harder. We as a church need to think about what we do to minister and encourage people for whom Life Transitions hit harder than they do many of us. So with that said, we believe it or not that was a high level walk through. We can get much more, but we wanted to have some where we have justin come up and i know he to be able have a discussion and go in directions, double click on certain things. So so thats what we wanted to do now. Bishop, would you join us . Yes. Have a coffee. I do have a coffee, so thank for the opportunity to join in on discussion. Just a few things before. I get to some questions that i have. First, i read the book, i understood was fascinating to be able to have the whole book in 5 minutes like that. Absolutely fascinating, but even more important to me was i could hear the tone of your hearts in that i love the fact that brilliant pastors are informing us and with that put together thank you because i mean when you talking about the spreadsheet im imagining you because i preferred to use a calculator with a heart and were friends but im imagining you sitting there looking at that spreadsheet in your heart broken and im really for that. And and you also dismantled some of the assumptions that people about what churched are and thats what was so helpful for me reading through the book. But lets, lets get started on. So what was surprising, just said it toward the end is that education and indeed searching seem to be in that especially among evangelicals. So can you unpack that a little bit about the charging education inversion . Yeah, this was something that was really interesting to us, our our social the primary. Dr. Ryan birge, hes done some work in this area. He himself was surprised at how clearly it presented itself in this area with 3 of evangelical who have masters degrees, have churched. So we knew that to be a fact. Why is that . Theres a little theres educated guessing going on and theres more studies that should be done on this. Theres some some theories. The type of person who wants to go to the university wants to get then get a masters degree is the type of person for a variety of reasons who would want to find themselves in a community of thinkers on a mission. So theres a theres a social piece to that others. And and im not just regarding that others like myself would also say christianity is a thinking mans religion, that we are given a faith that makes sense. Even there are some things miracles that we cant explain. Theres some paradoxes like the trinity and jesus being fully man and fully god cant explain that we to a point where we run into heresy. We have to engage in the paradox, but largely story makes sense. Theres theres historical evidence, theres scientific evidence, theres archeological. And so there is something about the the legitimacy of the christian and the Christian Faith handed down to us the historicity of the bible that. You just pointed to your book in said bible is im assuming theres a bible somewhere over there. Justin so there is a there is a piece where education and christianity are. They do go together, they coexist. You dont have to turn your brain off. Yeah, that was another dismantling of an assumption some people would have. Another one is you said secular right. Is searching at twice the rate of secular left so its want to highlight that but can to what do you attribute that historically and in the present time. Okay so im going to try and do this fast, but i think its a very interesting to see the progression of, the era that were calling the great deep searching and were getting. We call it the great deep searching because its its not the great unchristian thing or something and its the great conversion because a lot of these people are still christians, the great deep churches really started in the 1990s. There are for reasons that this is true. First, the fall of the soviet union. This was a major your piece to the two contributing to the great deep searching because before the end of the cold world the end of the cold war to be christian and to be american were synonymous so some of you are of an age i can remember this as a child when somebody the cold war that would say im no longer christian. It wasnt for the next question to be, well, you a communist. I mean, that jump wasnt crazy back then. Now, if to a younger person, that might sound like a crazy jump, but it wasnt. It was during the cold war in the Eisenhower Administration when in god we trust was added to our money, when under god was added our pledge thats thats not by chance that Christian America was at odds. It was in conflict with evil communists. So the fall of the soviet union, you could for the first time be an american and not a christian. Then you have the of the internet, 1994. You internet cafes coming up. You have internet by seven and most of the schools and libraries. So only was there freedom to not be a christian in our society at large. You might still not feel the freedom in in your family groups and social groups but you could find like minded people online. You could find other world online. Then there was some with the rise of the religious right, pat robertson, there were some expression on the secular and political right of christianity that some people that were more left leaning felt like. Well, if thats what christianity, i dont want any part of it that largely some of these people were probably not christians and looking for reasons to not be but then finished the. Decade september 11th 2001 and one day americas enemies go from the evil communist atheists to religious fundamentalists and then theres a whole nother group of people that just wants users at the very least, uses that as an excuse to not want anything to do with what they perceive to be fundamental religion. And so in that series, the nineties is when the secular left began to do church, Roman Catholic, mainline but as we progressed through. The early 2000, the 20 teens into we are now you see the right catching up some of that is because they are there are fewer secular left people to the church but there is a real phenomenon. Theres a type of person when i talk about embracing the posture theres a fear that is growing on you know among the average Christian American about whats going on our country. And so, you know, anybody their primary, secondary and tertiary beliefs, the primary the most important we go down in order. Well, as a christian, we care about the country and whats going on but primary things are going to be the doctrines that were talking about. And there should be a trust that gods going to take of his people. Whatever our culture looks at, looks like. But increasingly on the secular right, theres there is a type person who looks around and their primary their primary belief has more to do with country or god and country and that person is going to look around most churches and feel, well, thats not everybody elses primary thing. And thats what they want to hear more from the pulpit, from the congregation, small groups. And so some of people are looking and finding other groups with whom they can share that motivation. And theyre going to get some church like, sentiments Like Community and mission, but its not going to be the church. Thank you, michael. You youre doing the data, so im giving you this question. So im curious and you wrote in the book ethnicity casts a long shadow in the data and so id ask you to that. But also, what are the implications of that reality, ethnicity casts a long shadow in data. So when jim and i were talking with our so one of our two social scientists, ryan burdge, this is the phrase that he used ethnicity casts long shadow in the data. So we asked him the same question like ryan, does this mean and what do you it ryan meant by that is that even though our algorithm didnt have the ability to see its still sorted largely along ethnic lines culture christians 98 white the Mainstream Church evangelical is 91 white. The x vangelis rangels 83 white. And then the bipoc 0 white. Okay, well, how do you account for the algorithm sorting . Well, it looks like based on ethnicity, when it didnt have the ability, even see ethnicity ethnicity. So what, ryan, when we were talking with him, is ethnicity. Definitely shapes people and forms them in significa and ways in ways that we might not be, you know, that might be subconscious or even unconscious in terms of how were formed and shaped. And theres you know, i dont think it shouldnt be a shocking, you know, in this day and age to say that there many theres not like necessarily one america. There are many different americas. And you know ethnicity is one of the things thats going to play into how you know the perspective that you have on any number of things culture, society, the institutions that we you know that see and experience. And so ethnicity is a very important category as it when it comes searching and certainly perhaps maybe even the most important category in terms of reasons why people left and reasons why they would be willing to return. So its something that we should not ignore when were thinking about engaging with teachers, persons. Thank you. So what do you make of the 1 million affluent black men who left the church in the late nineties . Im not sure i can think a group of people who are more interesting me than this subset. Of the 1 million, you know extremely affluent black men who left the late 1990s, im not really sure by and large what to what to make of this. When we were you know, just kind of stories and a narrative around this group of people it was not the easiest group to just of build a to tell a story about but youre talking about the kind of you know, a colin powell type, somebody whos, you know, very high achieving and, you know, very much advancing in culture and society can navigate various different differences in Socio Economic spaces with deafness, but yet is experiencing what looks to be significant friction relationally and maybe even institutionally an evangelical churches. Now theyre their story was a mixture of mixture casual and casualty reasons. Theres certainly relational friction institutional but theres also seems to a fair amount of apathy thats been that was there as well so you know when when you do stuff like this, you know, ive got a whole i got a whole other document of like 28, 20 different areas if i ever do Additional Research where want more granularity, i want to know more about this group of people because im really curious. So he started and either one of you he started out talking about the history of Metro Atlanta orlando area and while your book is you said it started about Metro Orlando but then it turned into much Larger National and was going back to Metro Orlando. Can you define orlando how many counties is that and what percentage of the church and you may have mentioned it but i just i dont think i think the exact percentage the the Metro Orlando area, the same area that the is it the fcc radio . You know, the radio demographic seven counties its orlando melbourne, daytona and it it according to the bar in a 2017 study that area was 6 in fact check me here my but 6 evangelical and 42 the church which means that about 2 Million People in that area used to go to church and no longer do that. Thats the diocese. Central florida has 14 seven of those. Thats half of diocese or and theres a Central Florida presbyterian sitting about the same size. So thats, i mean, just highlighting about 2 million, thats a significant number percentage of the church, one metro area. Yeah. So you consider just, you know, that theres 40 Million People who have charged over in 2 million of them are in our metro area. That means one in 20 Church People in america are in our metro space. So it makes us this is our backyard that makes the sixth fastest, sixth Largest Churched city in the United States, which means the world because. This is an american phenomenon right now. Jim, you mentioned that there was a previous shift that was after the civil war. And and we often hear that our country is founded as a christian country. So what saying is that there were a lot of people before and during the civil who didnt go to church. Am i hearing you right . And if so can you say a little bit more. Yeah. You know, there was the United States, a christian nation at its founding. Thats a very loaded question. Thats why i asked it and didnt try to sort it all this. But its a good question and its a necessary question to understand whats going on here. In 1776, according to stark think, 17 of the people in the United States went to church. So 17 70 , thats not very large percent. You know, that grew through the second great awakening to about 34 right before the civil war. But i think theres something we have to understand and i feel like i need to lead off by saying im pro United States and pro constitution. But the single the single well, let me phrase it like this. The constitution of the United States was the single watershed document, secularization in the west. And i make that argument by saying if you compare it to the to colonies, to the constitution of the colonies, lets just say connecticut, they talk about jesus. They talk about evangel. Now, there was an asserted in the Us Constitution to pull some of that out. Now, you know, theres some good in that and they wanted a nation for all types of people. I appreciate that. Im not really taking any shots at the constitution saying that that the rise in christianity, the way that we and our parents and grandparents have experienced it, was largely a 20th century phenomenon. And so thats why we began to see this boom after the civil war of people, there was some returning to church, but a lot of people were never going church because only 34 of the nation went to church regularly before the civil war. And you have to think a National Like that would stir some of the deeper questions in our lives. The peak church of america was in 1970s at the high watermark at the peak churches, high watermark, great phrase, 70 . So you have four times the of the percentage of american citizen and in church in the 1970s and what you did at our nations founding in 1776 now weve trailed off from that in a of years back we dipped below percent and so now more people dont go to church than go to church. Thats a significant shift and we havent been there for for quite time. However, it is a bit a misnomer to think that you know, that of the we have to get into kind of mythological territory to begin to really kind of take 1776 and that era in our country and kind of make it be yeah the a e mayberry, you know, kind of mentality. So so. Jim and then mike, you gave us some bad news about people, how theyre suffering, some of the simple ways of despite the bad news. You both in the book also this evening have communicated hope and i would like to hear more and the hope you have despite the good the bad news of your research. Well a lot to begin with. The truth is, our friend and so as a church, we want know the truth about, the areas that we live in. And so i, i, the more we work this, im hopeful for how people really seem to still be christians. Im hopeful in willingness of 51 of the 40 million being willing to come back. I also see a real opportunity and i would even say a window opportunity because of the great the churches is going to end one way or another, whether everybody, the church and theres nobody at the church or if its or stabilizes some way, but either way, this area, this this window is to close. And we have an opportunity invest and, reach people who already have a christian foundation. Ive ive been a missionary in other parts the world where theres theres zero biblical foundation. And you thats theres a whole other level of work to do when people have no foundation. All im saying we have an opportunity here and now to invest in people who already have that foundation. And its not just an investment in them, an investment in generations to come. And this country, because these people have children and grandchildren and i would argue so the people today on this issue so go the generation has to come michael my hope is twofold and jim mentioned this before i believe in a god whos good and in control and i believe in a god who also uses us and whos works together with agency. And so when im looking at all the reasons why people left church, it seems reasonable, i understand why and when i just zoom out, demystify why people left. I mean, the reasons that make a lot of sense, you know, relational friction interpersonally and then theres friction institution. Well, i remember i look at all the reasons why people said that they would be willing to return. They look like things that are in my in my control in terms of how i relate to you. And they look like things in terms of the institutional way. Well, we can do we can do Church Better and. Theyre reasonable things. The reason i should be able to provide the reasonable things so its like well when look at it you know when we when we zoom out we demystify whats going on we look at the reasons why people would be willing to well, we just we as people and we grow as church institutions, we learn what were hearing and, you know, by gods grace and through sanctification, we do better. So i have tremendous hope. I have one more question. This practically orient, but i want to see because youre up here, were talking about all of this. If theres anything you left out, anything that you want to mention because youve given us a lot. But anything that swirling around of like, oh, i got to try and say this. So just and was a curveball but i want to throw it open you for a moment. Is there any theme, any topic question that you want to address before our final question . Weve covered a lot of ground. Anything that we havent addressed. Okay. I think weve covered a lot of it. I just want to drill more into different things. But theres no major topic of our study that weve not touched on. I want to leave it wide open for you to make sure you had all the bases covered. So last question and whoever wants to go first, i want to hear from both of you is what is and you started to talk about this at the very end. What one most impactful, lowest hanging fruit, practical thing people can do to respond to the data. What youre telling us so ive already this is going to to cheat a little bit ive already said i a church mainstream evangelical them so i, i get to have another one. You do . Im going to give a very orlando answer. We i think about a month ago where the third Fastest Growing city in the United States of america. Whats the number one reason for searching, moving . Well, i want to mobilize is our moving first responders, school administrators, tutors, realtors, people who can identify why people when they move in, if they you know, if these people are christians and looking for a church, they can have a major impact in connecting them. So they dont become one of the casually churched. Great for me, its the growth that have as individuals. You might not be in a place where you can effect institutional in, say, a local church. You might not have any position of leadership. These different kinds of things, but we can all grow as humans and in the book we kind of unpack this a chapter entitled relational. And in that chapter we, talk about six key awarenesses that together when you put them together, those things encompass relational and ill get them to you. You should by the book, read the book. You know you can talk about this in much detail, but those six key awarenesses that are god, selfawareness others awareness awareness of how other people experience you, cultural awareness in, emotional awareness. We repeat those one more time because people are notes. I was sitting with and watching people notes. So you wont have to take notes if it. Because its all there but you know with awareness when when we are sensitive to to the triune work of god in our life, the holy spirit applying, you know, the work of christ to us to our whole being, you know, were sensitive to lord. Who are you putting in front of me . And then when we have self awareness, we, we have awareness. What is our story, what are our wants, fears and desires, hopes and dreams, all of those things together. And then we have others awareness. Were cognizant of the people that god just keeps putting consistently front of us. You know, maybe theyre knowledge people or their dinner table people. And maybe there are people who need to be in our lives for years or decades. Who knows . But then and this is where i think people really struggle, its and i know i struggle for personally, ive had to call it a long journey for this myself. Marriage has been helpful and ministries been helpful and friends have been helpful. Awareness of how other are experiencing you. Thats been a great struggle for me. And maybe, you know, if youre another spreadsheet guy, you can say a little in your, you know, in your soul, but how other people are experiencing us is really important. And things can be bolstered if we are growing also in our awareness, in our cultural awareness as well as. We know americas fracturing on levels thats happening in the churches happening, you know, on main street as so the more that can embody those six key awarenesses people will experience with greater relational trust and theyll experience in a way that, oh, man, you know, jim has something thats actually very attractive and magnetic to me. Im kind of curious about things. So a lot of these things boil down to, you know, the ways which weve made mistakes relationally with people at the individual level. And if you get a lot of people together who have a relational aware, you know, who have relational wisdom, well, you end up with a church body thats going to do better as an institution. So i think thats the low hanging. And what and once again youve just males another huge barrier because we all think well mean theres rooms packed because when i heard about determining whos leaving youre like because they all have people in mind we all we all have people in mind. So theyre here. But encouraging word to me i could feel the hope when you all were describing it viscerally of inviting people i dont have to go get another degree or i need to find some leader whos going to do it. Theres some person need to point to but i can actually do. Theres people god put in my life who and like when you started doing you even in youre like they just need a nudge like this how simple in encouraging that is that that the people who are reading this book who are hearing this that they are actually the ones that god is using for his kingdom for his mission. So thank you for your friendship. I have a few closing announcements, all of us. But i want to thank you both for your friendship, for the hard work for raising 100,000 to do this, to take the hours and weeks and. Months, because i was alongside you guys as you were writing these things and for pouring yourself out and focusing on and for your churches, allowing you to give attention to this and your families who let you have the time to write this, because i know there were sacrifices there. So thank you very much so for some. Theyre both looking at their wives the whole time as like wanting them to actually come up here and get some of the applause because i know them. So theyre right down here. And and thank you for letting me be part of this for Cathedral Church of st luke to host this conversation and this so what you all need to know is that michael and jim will be next if you go out the back doors to the building next door is called the great hall. But you miss it because its the only other building next door. The bathrooms are over there. Its been an hour and a half. You want to go over there, you can get a copy of the book. They will be over there for. So dont come this way. Go that way and they will meet you over there. We also want to thank a few churches while the diocese of Central Florida in the Cathedral Church of saint luke are hosting this event our space theres actually numerous that have been involved and theyre here their leaders have been here and theres actually a network of people. So its the diocese, its the Cathedral Church of saint luke reformed Theological Seminary has been involved in helping get the word out. Mosaic church, First Presbyterian church of orlando about a mile down the road, grove church, new city, orlando church, orlando grace church. Jim and jims a pastor. Mike is no longer on staff but is a member at the church now in orange wood church and thats encouraging because thats a lot of solidarity that was reflected from across various different traditions that are here in. The 6 of the church. So thats churches joining together to learn how to love and serve wisely and well should be encouraging to all of us. Last i would like to close in prayer and then we will thank them one more time. So the lord be with you. The holy and gracious father, we pray for your church fill it with all truth and with all peace where it is corrupt, purify it where it is in error, direct it where in anything it is a missed reform it where it is right strengthen it where it is and want provide for it. Where it is divided, reunite it ever living god whos it is that all should come to you . To your son jesus christ inspire our witness to him that all may know the power of his forgiveness and the hope of his resurrection to lives and reigns with you and the holy spirit. One god now and forever, and please join me one last time in thanking jim davis Michael Graham. Ll