Transcripts For CSPAN2 Jim 20240706

And more broadband. Project along with these Television Companies support cspan2. Thank you very much for comingth out my name is justin d this is our future. We went to orlando, we are thrilled you are here. Some of you are church, some are teachers, some are unchurched and some of us to come get. Regardless is are interdependent this event after this, this is vital for first, 41 people have left the church and half of them to come up. Are they going to come back . Are not just members, thats the thing. Youre here people, families, you just. Hearing voices important to honor the them. 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 it didnt matter your denominations face was from acute to be in the mainline space, second largest in my church the United States. If youre in the evangelical, First Baptist church and this eventually for the nondenominational face 20000 people on the cutting edge of Church Technology in many ways, if you face the Largest Organization others began to relocate their, their headquarters as well. Fastforward 2017 and we learn the orlando metropolitan area, area have a safe evangelical city so mike and i were affected by the report and began and why is it feel different yellow the majority of people we interact with will likely never even. The first study, the goal was to prove or disprove this thesis. We are currently in the largest and fastest religious shift in history of our country. And we proved it. So we proved it as justin said by learning this over 40 million adult americans over the past largely 25 years have stopped going to church. Its important to know the way we define a dechurched person is the somebody for you go to church at least monthly and now goes 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 the 25 years postcivil war. The was a was a least a 12 uptick in the 25 year period in the number in the percentage of churchgoers in the United States. Our current when did you shift over the past 25 years is 1. 25 times greater than that one just going the opposite direction. In terms of numbers, it is larger than the first great awakening, the second great awakening, and every billy graham crusade combined. Thats the part that initially we want to land is the United States is ine the middle of the largest and fastest religious shift in history of our country. Then we wanted to know who is dechurching . Who are these people . And if you just Pay Attention what you say in the news and on social media you would think well, the dechurched person had a bad experience in church. This person has de converted completely, probably is wrestling through gender identity and sexuality, sexual ethics that may be different than the church. And while those types of deChurch People certainly exists, do you want to know the number one reason for dechurching in america . I moved. I moved. We actually found that of the 40 million adult americans have left church, 30 million of them did so without any pain point. So at the highest level we then began too understand okay, some people that with a pain point, about 10 million americans, but 30 million didnt. So we begin to distinction disth between these two groups and we called one the dechurched casualties. They had the pain point. Any other 30 million americans we called a casual dechurched. They moved. They had life transition. They got divorced. They had children. Their children may be grew up and they were consumed in travel sports pick the children other activities. The church became inconvenient for whatever reason and, of course, then there was covid. People stopped going to church depending on what state you live didnt anywhere from three to 18 months. People develop new rhythms, new habits. Many people moved during that time which combined just more and more reasons for this casually dechurched group to increasingly grow. S, now, and the Church Casualty realm summer christian summer not. Were going to show you more about that. And a casual dechurched realm some accretions and some are not as bestat we can tell. What we reallyea began to see is that the dechurched person is not a monolithic profile. So we wanted to in our third phase of our study dialin even more deeply and so we use something called machineth learning, good to know this isnt just to make passive point a finger up in the air, or pulling our 200 best friends or do a facebook poll. We had an Machine Learning algorithm mind these massive amounts of data that we had to compare, edges and help us to understand who is dechurching and more granular detail. I will let mike take it from there. Yet, Machine Learning. Thats a fancy word to say this is our efficiently and without bias introduce people who are very common clusters of answer choices ofhe why the dechurched, andat demographics they are, how much willingness to the have to return to the church, and what reasons why they might return to the church. Were going to talk about five different profiles here. Were going to go through these things relatively quickly. Were going to first f cover for different types of dechurched evangelicals of them are going to cover the mainline and Roman Catholic dechurched together. Whats interesting to note about the mainline and Roman Catholic church of why were going to cover those together is by and large the mainline Roman Catholic people who dechurched look very similar. In just about every category. The main difference between mainline Roman Catholic church would be the catholic dechurched were little more sensitive to clerg scandal in the broader world. If youre familiar at allll with history and films like spotlight and these kinds of things you can understand why. And in the mainline dechurch were a little more sensitive to moving as to mentioned, the very top choice for why people dechurched. Without further ado im going to start though with the four different types of dechurched evangelicals. Now, imagine with me heree for a moment, the first profile, cultural christians. Now, theres 15 million of the 49 people who dechurched who came out of Evangelical Churches. The Roman Catholics and mainline together are about 20 million. But cultural christians, about 8 million of the 15 Million People who left, imagine with me the cultural christian. You are about 40 years old, you are male, you were probably never a christian, and life seemed to bell working well for you. You didnt necessarily have a big problem with the church, edges kind of moved on from church about a decade ago. And so the cultural christians, this is group of people that didnt essence of have a big with the church. By and large of their indepth cultural, that casual dechurched category. Not this is a lot there looks catastrophic. The average age of p the person who is a cultural christians who dechurched is 40 years old and the dechurched about a decade ago. T this group interestingly enough is almost entirely monolithically white. And one thing to note as were going through all the data here, the Machine Learning algorithm rejimmy for two, we did not allw the algorithm to sort based on race or ethnicity. And so these classes were developed without the algorithm, have the benefit of seeing thate we will circle back and forth, little bit of back and forth without i do think Bishop Holcomb was some questions about that but its important to note this group is monolithically white, 98 marriage. These are people who were doing well for themselves. They had above average income, above average education, lots of fulltime 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 develop 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 looking forward things like what you would find in the nicene creed, the divinity of jesus, the humanity of jesus, the sinlessness of jesus, jesus substitutionary death and his atonement, the resurrection of jesus, the reliability of the bible, and the trinity. So this group of people, this profile, the cultural christian come had the lowest orthodoxy score. On average they would answer accurately relative to nicene creed about 56 of those kind of seven questions. Y, heres the real kicker. This is why you know that this group largely probably are not followers of christ. Only 1 of of this group said that jesus is the son of god. 1 . This is probably not a group of people who are probably serious christians and probably not in the faith. 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 what do they need from us . The top think this group nietzsche must is they need that match. They need someone who just to come alongside with just given that managed to come back into church. They also need a church context that is goingng to take doctrine and ethics seriously. I think its good if we child and some of the distance that somebody might be experiencing from god or maybe missing church or maybe feeling a little bit that distance from the lord isnt good because i think thats there. And then like g the first group, we need to engage well this group in in the 1839yearoe range. Third group, very different than the first two. Again, roughly 2. 5 Million People. I want you to imagine with 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,h, and she probably had bad experiences with the church as an institution. But o this person probably actually still has a lot of affection for jesus. Now, this is the was interesting about the first group, the cultural christians, 48 of them are willing to return to ann evangelical chur. The second group and it didnt mention this, the mainstream evangelicals, 100 of them were willing to return to an Evangelical Church today. Do youpe know how many, what percentage of the people who are asked in jellico are willing to return to an Evangelical 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 there, a lot of different traditions and were going to see and an americas actually a lot of spiritual sensitivity and not a hope is lost for this particular group. Let me not get ahead of myself. This group is struggling in life, not just church. There is below average income. There is below average education. American institutions are working very poorly for this group of people. They are really struggling not just with faith but struggling in every area of life. There is a low perspective on every institution whether those things are economic, political, you know, sociological, educational system, all of those things are very much struggling. Whats interesting though relative to their beliefs, they had the secondhighest orthodoxy score of any of the profiles that we were going to look. 70 , even further, 97 of this group said jesus is the son of god. 97 . They also do relatively high view of the bible. Politically speaking, this group was 58 independent. What that let that settle in for a second. 58 independent. Independent. This group is very allergic to political partisanship. They are very allergic to racism. They are very allergic to misogyny, and they are very allergic to abuse. So, its important and i appreciate the amen, that we give voice to people who, you know, by and large do seem to still love jesus but they have really struggled with the relationship with the church. Whether that was interpersonally, institutionally, or both, it was important for us in the study to give voice to those things. So why did the leave . You use Different Reasons her, okay . Those first two profiles we looked at, they looked more like the casually dechurched. This group was almost entirely like casualties. Number one reason why they left. They didnt fit within the congregation. Number two, they moved, number three attendance was inconvenient but nevernu for, i did not expect much love within the congregation. Five, i disagreed with the politics of the congregation. C six, negative experiences you personally had an Evangelical Church. Seven, i no longer believe or the congregation believed and a disagreed with the politics or the clergy. So you are seeing of tension here, a lot of friction, okay . Some of that is interpersonal, some of that is institutional. Now, even though 0 of of this group was willing to return to an evangelical c church, many of these people are willing to return to a Christian Church of some sort. I think thats good news. Here we are in a church that loves jesus deeply, if not an evangelical tradition its in the mainline tradition where i think that the profile that were looking here could easily find themselves a very happy home. So why did this group, this group told us what kind of reasons they would be willing to return to aas nonEvangelical Church. Heres the top reasons. Number one, g god tells him to o back any significant way. Two, they find a church they like. Three, a good pastor. Four, 21 of them say they are never going back, okay . Five, they feel distanced from god. Ch six, a 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 exevangelical group would be willing to return to church you see spiritual sensitivity, sensitivity to god and there is a desire for a Healthy Community come looking for a Healthy Community,y, looking for healthy past, looking for a church that cares about justice and compassion for vulnerable people. Good, these churches exist. Its important i think the exevangelical group is easier to identify i think sometimes men of the people because its easier to see when theres pain rather than apathy. And so what do they need . They need a nonpartisan church committee, okay . Remember 50 of this group dont identifyu with either the gop or the democratic party. They need a church thats going to take doctrine and ethics seriously. A church thats going to care for vulnerable people. Three, they need Mental Health help. Im kind of a geek, okay . I like spreadsheets. I would much rather be sitting in front of the spreadsheet right now than talking to you. [laughing] no offense. When i was looking at the spreadsheet here, you know, all these data point and all these people, i got to this one row and this one column, and it was about the level of suicidal thoughts, and there was a scale that you were to rate yourself on zero to 100. And the zero was you were doing very poorly with respect too suicidal thoughts in your life. And 100 was you had, this is not an issue at all. You hadad no thoughts, suicidal thoughts or ideation. This group had the lowest score of anyone on this category. You want to know how they rank themselves onra average . 16. 16. So, the exevangelical need Mental Health help they also need clergy this could be empathetic and as well as an empathetic church community. Our fourth profile is bipoc church. Black, indigenous persons of color. Heres what i want you to imagine for this profile. A 51yearold africanamerican man who is very successful in either business, law, medicine, and the dechurched probably during med school or law school. Interestingly enough, this group had the highest income and the highest education of any group. And this group with 76 africanamerican, 13 hispanic or latino, and 68 male. That means over half of this 2. 5 million size group of people were africanamerican men. This group is very upwardly mobile. They work very, very hard, and they are doing very well for themselves. An American Culture and society, in spite ofwo institutions that largely didnt work well for them. So this group look a lot similar to the cultural Christian Group with respect to the orthodoxy score. Like the cultural christians they dont particularly look i enlarge like they are christians here today. They were independent to centerleft politically, not super progressive on things like race interestingly enough. Heres why they left. Number one reason, you have a do you have guess what it is . They, they moved. Number two, faith wasnt working for them. Three, and other priorities for their time and money. There was some suffering. That began to doubt god existence. There was a scandal their congregation among the clergy. They didnt see the congregation doing enough good in the community. And the messages were not relevant to their life. The bipoc group looks a little bit like some of the casual reasons and some of the casualty reasons. Theres clergy more friction thats here. E. Now, bear in mind, this group is 0 white, 100 nonwhite. Again, the algorithm did not have the benefit of seeing ethnicity. Why would this group you wanting to return . Like the culturall christians come over half of this group are willing to return here today, and the 62 . Number one reason, new friends. Two, move and make new friends. Three, lonely and want to make new friends. Four, child wants to go. Five, friend invites me. A Good Community. Spouse wants to go. Feel the distance from god. Six of these reasons are relational, okay . Just relational. So what does this group need from us . Well, they need relationship d friendship that with people who are embodied cultural and emotional intelligence. They also need congregations that are going to care about doctrine and spiritual formation. And this group tended to tended to dechurched earlier than any of the other groups. They dechurched in the 13th 13th30yearold age range largely in the late 1990s. Now, heres our fifth profile. This is going to be the mainline and Roman Catholic folks together cant remember the difference with the catholic dechurched being a little bit more sensitive to clergy scandal and the broader church, and then the mainline dechurched being more sensitive to moving. Now, the mainline folks dechurcheded the first, and wee talking late 80s all w the way through the mid90s is when people were leaving the mainline church. The Roman Catholic church were largely early 90s the late 90s. The evangelicals were dechurchingr later, largely frm the mid90s to now. So heres what i want you to picture, imagine this is a mainline Roman Catholics, imagine a female whos on average in her mid50s and sheets white, and theres just, in terms of, its a mixture of casual and casualty reasons. Thingsno like moving to a new community, not fitting within the congregation, political friction, other priorities for time and money, attendance was inconvenient and not experiencing much love within the congregation. Now, from orthodoxy score standpoint, this group looks ali lot like the cultural christians and the bipoc group. Their average orthodoxy score was 57 . P now heres whats different. 69 of this group said that jesus is the son of god. So doing a little bit better on jesus. But they had a a relatively lw view of the bible. Theres some real opportunities of their with respect to the bible. This groupwa was the most progressive politically, centerleft to leftleaning, and like the exevangelicals this group was very allergic to racism, misogyny, political partisanship, and abuse. So they left because they moved, had other priorities, relational friction in the congregation, political friction in the congregation, some doubts to god existence, inconvenience and some other casual reasons. Now, what does this group of people need from us . May need word and deed together. They need congregations that are going to avoid misogyny and racism, partisan politics and theyre going to be sensitive to things like abuse and that systems and structures to try to be prevented if of those things. They also need churches that are going to take the historic creeds and confessions seriously. They need 19 creed christianity. They need sound doctrine, spiritual formation. They are just over all across the board there needs to be a higher regard for bible. Interestingly enough, what we saw is the higher a church took the bible, the less likely in those contexts people were dechurching. Yeah, i mean historically theyreto going back to the beginning of the indictment movement. You can see effortse in churchs to shed certain miracles to be able to relate to the culture more. Our study shows the more churches hold onto the historic nicene creed christianity including miracles, the better theyre going to do from a data point of view. Our right. So let me give you some of the high level and sites that we learn. Now that we have those categories can dechurched people are not monolithic. I said already that we are currently in the largest and fastest religious ship in history in 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 justin said in begin these are people, these are souls. Even the christians who are no longer attending church, reality is that c the children of the dechurched will most likely be unchurched. As a pastor i care about that. And even agnostic and atheist friend should care about the impact this is when have on the culture in which we live. The gdp of all the people who have let church, the 40 million, about 1. 4 trillion. So you take the National Giving average of 2. 5 2. 5 perceny to that 40 Million Group of people, about 4 billion dollars to usehe leaving the church. When you think also about the fact that 40 of the social safety net in our country comes from churches and religious nonprofits, this is going to have, make a big difference because even though some of the dechurched people are still given to 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. We would also argue is is going to contribute to the fracturing and polarizing of the political conversations that we are having. Second, we said this over half the people who have teachers are willing are actively willing to return. That was a big shocker too must we did realize how many people would still be wanting to return. Number three, this is very interesting. Education and dechurching are inversely related. Often hear things like well, christianity is aou poor mans religion. Before you are, the more likely you are to believe. Once we get educated and make money we move on. Our study and are studies that the 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 church. So only 3 of evangelicals with a masters degree have dechurched. 3 . This kind of, this goes after the myth of the bogeyman of higher secular education take your children away. Four, going to College Students and education, college dudes, christian College Students who are involved in a church and a campus ministry, they are three times likely to continue in the church. Fifth, the overwhelming majority of people are dechurch will differ between the ages of 1330. This is a big deal. Deal. That is a timeframe where it is most difficult to maintainh yor faith. In the bipoc evangelical group it was even harder during the ages of 1330. Its hard for everybody but you have three specific stages. You have your teenage years, which are hard. You have your transition out of your parents home into a college or vocation. Thats a hard season to maintain your faith. That might after that if you go to college establishing a professional life, getting married, that season is the hardest season. So there are implications we will talk about in a little bit about that. And six, come back to the education discrepancy. Dechurching is largely a middle low class and lowerclass phenomenon. This is very important for the church to hear. The top reasons are people dechurching, i moved and life transition period so who gets hit hardest when theres a divorce . When kids come expected or unexpected . Who gets hit hardest when you lose a job . Well, the lowerclass gets hit the hardest. Then that requires working longer, usual hours per it requires more transition, in some cases when there are custody issues. The dechurching is the life issues that contribute to dechurching are hitting the lowerclass will were sign. So we argue there are some things the church needs to do to beou thinking about the middle o low class and the low class to be able tomi engage and minister them more effectively. This is a really interesting and for some people and alarming insight. Evangelicals are dechurching today on the secular rightht at twice the speed of the secular left. So heres another myth. A myth you hear is its the secular left dechurching. Currently, the secular right is dechurching at twice the pace. Now, some of that is because a lot of dechurching has only happened on the secular left but in terms of numbers the secular right is almost at. So they goes against a lot of what we understand about the dechurched person. We are good at some discussions on and we can dive in with justin and a number of these areas that we want to highlight some of these higher findings. So we spent the latter, largely the latter half of the book, ladder 40 , talking but what are some things that we as a church can do, given this data . Now, as an Orthodox Christian i want to introduce 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. I want to put those caviar to there. But as people were still called to exercise wisdom. So theres some wisdom that can be gleaned from this data. The first thing is that we as a church leaders, and im talking about us, we need to exercise more relational wisdom. Its not just for church leaders. I think in some places it starts there, but exercise relational wisdom, humility, skills of curiously listening comp. Justin and i talked about if you know the term apologetics defending the Christian Faith, the a apologetic of the 21st century, one of the main apologetics are going to be skills that look a lot like a counselor. So exercising that wisdom, invest in student ministry. If 1330 s hardest time to maintain your faith and we in the church need to make Big Investments there. We need to be inpa spaces wherea child can feel comfortable having doubt and asking people about that that. We need to be a place where we are grounding what we believe and teaching it in a way where its sending them out into the world in a way where then now to live in that world. So thats going to mean, it can mean a lotan of things in different contexts, but we want to invest in that generation. We want to give him space to ask question, given real answers to the questions are asking in high school and in the transition out of the parents house. Third, prioritize Mental Health. As mike said theres a lot of data that says that those who have regular church, those who regularly attend church, they do finds themselves in a better mental space than those who do not. But that doesnt meaan weve gt the market on Mental Health. Thats right. So we need to recognize that and continue to build, and our land is unique because we have the largest per capita number of Mental Health professionals of any city inrl the world. Therera are 11 institutions in Central Florida pumping out Mental Health degrees. So we have a lot of resources at our disposal. Now, we would like 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, which i come from, in the 20th century we put it that this is what is true. You solved in our sermons, and are apologetic methods, and our evangelistic tract. What is true, true, true. That often came at the expense of physical, is a beautiful . Fast forward to now what kind of questions and opposition to we aso christians get . Is it ethical . Is a good . It shouldnt surprisees us we would argue that the bible, jesus gospel is to come it is good and it is beautiful. You go over to the main my space and it was a different shift, there was a strong emphasis on what is good in society. Sometimes among the dechurched mainly people sometimes at the expense of whats true. So we as a church whatever stream of the Christian Faith we come from what to embrace a gospel that is true, that is good and is beautiful because that is what we are given. Five, this may be one of the more uncomfortable takeaways. Christians need to be willing to embrace and exultant posture. The norm for gods people over the history ofhu the church and signature im going back to israel, abraham, jeremiah, in the early church in the new testament moving on inwo other areas of the world. The norm for gods people has been a state of exile. Thats true today and these comp the global east and the global south. We need to know that what weve experienced over the past 150 years, while their blessings in it, has not been the norm for gods people and we need to be okay and know that god has been with his people in medicine in exile, and we are no different. Six, identify a dechurch mainstream in the evangelical and invite them back to church. This is the lowest hanging fruit. And you dont have too be an entry in an Evangelical Church pews. Would you sing verses group of 2. 5 Million People who are 100 willing to come back. We had it a lot of money for study came out of one church in missouri, columbia, missouri, and the gift of our executive report very early on and said heres the data, do what you want with it. They identified, they saw this group which eventually became called the dechurch mainstream evangelical group. They identified this group both digitally and personally, and in four months they had hundreds of new people inn the church. Hundreds. I want to go back to what justin said, its really important. This isnt to say phillipa church or c philip coffers or something. The children of the dechurch will likely sociologically speaking the unchurched, so this isnt just an investment in the current status of our local church. This is an investment in generations. And then lastly, we as a church come back to dechurching being an lowerclass phenomenon, may be a better to say it is its hitting the lowerclass more harder. Its hitting him harder. We the church need to think that what we can do to minister and encourage people for whom Life Transitions hit harder than they do many of us. So with that said, believe it or not that was a high level walkthrough. We can get much more granular, but we wanted to have some time he where we have just and come up i know, to be able to have discussion and go in different directions, doubleclick on certain things. So thats what we wanted to do. Bishop, would you join us . Do you guys have copy . I do have a copy. So thank you for the opportunity to join in on this discussion. Just if you think before i get to some questions that a half. First, i read the book. I endorsed. That was fascinating to be able to have the whole book in 45 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. So thank you because when you start to talk about the spreadsheet, im imagining you because i referred you as a cackling as heart, and we are friends. On imagining you sitting to look at that spreadsheet and your heart being broken, and it really grateful for that. And you also dismantled some of the assumptions that people have about what dechurch are, and thats what was so helpful for me reading through the book. Lets get started, so what was surprising . You said towards it in that education and dechurching seem to be inverse, and especially among evangelicals. So can you unpack that a little bit more about the dechurching education inversion . Yeah. Es this is somethingr truly interesting to us. Our social scientists, the primary one, doctor ryan burge, hes done some work in this area. He himself was surprising how clearly represented itself inf this area with 3 of evangelicals who have masters degrees come haveur dechurched. We know 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 social theories that the type of person who wants to go to university, wants to then get a masters degree, is a type of person for variety of reasons who would want to find themselves in a community of thinkers on a mission. So theres a social peace to that. Others, and im not disregarded that, others like myself would also says christianity is a thinking mans religion, that we are given a faith that makes sense. There are some things, miracles, that we cant explain. An for some paradoxes like the trinity and jesusn being fully man and fully god. Cant explain that. The point where we run into heresy. We need to engage the paradox but largely this story makes sense. Theress historical evidence, their scientific evidence, theres archaeological evidence. So there is something about the legitimacy of the christian story and the Christian Faith handed down to us, the historicity of the bible that speed if you just put your book and said bible. [laughing] spy im assuming that the bible summer over there, justin. [laughing] so there is, there is a piece where education and christianity are, they do go together. They coexist. You dont have to turn your brain off. Anotherme dispelling of an assumption so people would have pick another what is you said secular right is dechurching at twice the rate of secular left. B so highlight that, but to what do you attribute that historically and in the present time . Okay. Im going to try to do this fast but i think its very interesting to see the progression of the era we are calling the great dechurching. I can recall the great dechurching because i thought the great unchristian in our something or is not the great deconversion. A lot of people are still christians. The great dechurching minister in the 1990s. There are four reasons that this is true. First, the fall of the soviet union. This was a major piece to contributing to the great dechurching. Because the end of the coldd wa, to be christian and to be american were some anonymous. Some of you are of an age, i remember this as a child when it somebody during the cold war, that era, would say im no longer a christian, it wasnt crazy for the next question to be, well, are you a communist . That jump wasnt crazy back in. Now to a younger person that might sound like a crazy jump but it wasnt. It was during the cold war and the Eisenhower Administration when in god we trust was added toto our money, when under god s added to our pledge. Thats not by chance. That Christian America was at odds, was in conflict with evil communists. So fall of the soviet union, you could for the first time an american and not a christian. Then you have the. Rise of the internet 1994. You have internet cafes commit, internet. My 97 my 97 most schools and libraries and not only was it for them to doubt be a christian in our society about, you might still not feel the freedom in your family groups or social groups, but you can find likeminded people online. You can find other worldviews online. Then there was some with the rise of the religious right, at robertson, there were some expressions on the secular and political right of christianity that some people that were more leftleaning felt by, well, at thats what christianity is, i dont want any part of it. Largely at some of these people are not christians anyway and looking for reasons to not be, but then finish the decade september 11, 2001. In one day americas enemies go from the evil communists theseus to religious fundamentalists. And so then theres a whole nother group of peopleat that jt want, at the very least uses that as an excuse to not want anything to do with what they perceived to be fundamental religion. And so in that series of the 90s is when the secular left beginnl to dechurch. Roman catholic, mainline. But as we progressed through the early 2000s, the 20 teens into where we are now, you see the secular right catching up. Some of that is because they are there are fewer secular left people to dechurch, but there is a real phenomenon. As a type ofta person when i tak about embracing the posture, theres a fear that is going on amongst the average Christian America about whats going on in our country. And so anybody has their primary, secondary and tertiary bullets, the primate andn will e support of the go down in order, as a christian what we care about the country whats going on, but primary things are going to be the doctrines that were talking about. There should be a trust that god is going to take care of his people, whatever our culture looks like. An increasingly on the secular right there is a type of person who looks around and their primary, their primary belief has more to do with country for god and country, and that person is going to look around most churches and feel like welcome thats not anybody elses primary thing. And thats what they want to more of from the pulpit on the congregation in small groups and so some of those people are looking and finding other groups with whom they can share that primary motivation. And theyre going to get some churchlike sentiments come Like Community and mission but its not going to be the church. Thank you. Michael, you were doing the data for giving this question because im curious. You will kennebunk, ethnicity tasks a long shadow in the data. And so im going to ask you to unpack that but also what are the implications of that reality as ethnicity cast a long shot at the did . So when jim and i wereth talking with one of our two social sciences, ryan burge, this is a phrase that is used. A long shadow in the data. We asked him the sameti questio, like ryan, what does this mean . What brian meant by that is that even though our algorithm didnt have the ability to see ethnicity, it still sorted largely along ethnic lines, cultural christians 90 white. The mainstream dechurched evangelicals, 91 white. The exevangelicals 83 white. And then the bipoc accrue, 0 white. Okay . How do you account for the algorithm sorting what looks like based on ssc when it didnt have the ability to even see ethnicity . So what ryan, when we were talking with him, is ethnicity definitely shapes people and forms them in significant ways, and ways of we might not even be, that might be subconscious or even unconscious in terms of formed and shaped. I dont think, it shouldnt be a shocking revelation in this day and age to say that there are many, this that like necessarily one america. There are many different americans. Ethnicity is one of the things thats going to play into how you, you know, the perspective you have on any number of things, culture, society, institutions that we see and experience. And so ethnicity is a very important category as when it comes to dechurching. And certainly perhaps theype be even the most important category in terms of reasons why people left and reasons why they would be willing to return. Its something we shouldul not ignore when we are thinking about engaging with dechurched person. Thank you. So what do you make of the 1 million affluent black men who left the church in the late 90s . Im not sure i can think of a group of people who are more interesting to me than this subset of the 1 million, you know, extremely affluent black men who left in the late 90 1990s. 1990. Im not really sure i and large what to make of this group. When we were just kind of developing stories and narratives around this group of people, it was not the easiest group to just kind of build, to tell a story about. But youre talking about the kind of, a colin powell type, somebody who is very high achieving and very much a dancing in culture and society, to navigate various differences in socioeconomic spaces with deafness, but yet is expensing what looks to be significant friction deftness institutionally and Evangelical Churches. Now, their story wasxt a mixture of casual and casualty reasons. Theres certainlyti relational institutions come friction sga but also seemed a fair amount of apathy that was there as well. When you do stuff like this, ive got aoc whole other documet of like 20 different areas if i ever do Additional Research i want more granularity, i want to know more about this group of people because im really curious. So you started, and i the what if you can view out talk about the history of Metro Orlando area. And while your book is you said it started about Metro Orlando but then it turned into a much Larger National and whats happening. Going back to Metro Orlando, can you define Metro Orlando, how many counties is that in what percentage of the dechurched . You may make it but i was i us of exact percentage Metro Orlando areas the same area that is that the fcc, the radio, the reader demographic and seven counts, its orlando, melbourne, daytona. 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, that highlighting about 2 million, a significant number for one area. If you 40 Million People to the church for 2 million are in the metro area, that means 120 the Church People in america in the metro space. That makes us the largest the church city in the United States which means the world because this is an american, right now. You mentioned the previous shift after the civil war and we often hear our country is founded as a Christian Country so what you are saying is there were a lot of people before and during the civil war, and my hearing you right . There was thd 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. American history keeng sundays nonfiction books dollars cspan2 thousand Companies Including telecommunications. Is one of the best start thousands of miles of new infrastructure. Will with these Television Companies support cspan as a public. 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