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Tags: church attendance | worship | faith

As US Church Attendance Dips, Faith Leaders Improvise

By    |   Sunday, 11 December 2022 02:20 PM EST

Christianity in America is suffering from an identity crisis. Attendance is steeply declining, particularly among millennials and Gen Z, who say traditional churches don’t resonate with their personal realities.

Religious leaders are scrambling to experiment with alternative ways to offer meaning to peoples’ lives.

Three years ago, Pastor Chris Battle walked away from leading Black Baptist churches and turned his efforts to Battlefield Farm & Gardens in Knoxville, Tenn. There they grow vegetables and sell them at a farmer’s market. They also collect produce and deliver it weekly to individuals in public housing.

Battle says he left his Baptist church because the traditional church was not connecting him with people. He felt they were turned off by the sermons, the requests for money and the Sunday-morning formality.

People who appear at Battlefield Gardens Sunday morning say they are looking for a faith community but have burned bridges with the church.

Battle offers a brief sermon on the teaching of Jesus. They expand it in conversation. There is no altar or holy communion, just a congregation. They raise kale, eggplant, string beans, squash, and tomatoes. There’s also a chicken coop and a compost pile.

Last year, Americans’ membership in churches fell below 50% for the first time since Gallup began its authoritative religion survey. In 1937 — the year the Gallup poll began — seven out of 10 Americans attended church. In 2020 — before the pandemic — only 47% of Americans belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque, according to the survey. Church-going has been facing a downward trend since 2000. Young people reject organized religion, causing some churches to have an existential crisis.

Battlefield Farm offers a different faith: people can attend Bible lessons or simply dig in the dirt.

Closing churches affect all denominations, from Lutherans, Methodists and Presbyterians to Episcopalians.

"Every year we close anywhere between two and five churches. Every single year," says Methodist pastor Bradley Hyde. "I think people were already wanting to leave church, and COVID gave them a great opportunity to say, 'Goodbye.' I'm not the only pastor who has noticed that, but a lot of people have just not come back."

While congregations have been dwindling, people are still yearning for spirituality.

"Just because you leave organized religion doesn't mean the hunger to connect with the divine is going to cease," says the Rev. Caroline Vogel. She's associate rector and director of Spiritus Knox, a center for spiritual learning and practice, at the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Knoxville.

"It's how we were created. We need food, we need shelter, we need clothing, and we also have to feed our souls in some way," she continues. "And so I think there's this challenge of, OK, we've been doing it like this for so long, and it's just not working for people in a way that meets them in a holistic way."

The Church of the Ascension in Knoxville sets aside Sunday evenings for non-church programs such as “Breathing Under Stained Glass.” About 30 people sit on yoga mats on the terra cotta floor in the tranquil sanctuary illuminated by candles under stained-glass saints. On other Sunday nights, the church offers a Celtic service — a book group called Tools of Aliveness.

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Christianity in America is suffering from an identity crisis. Attendance is steeply declining, particularly among millennials and Gen Z, who say traditional churches don't resonate with their personal realities.
church attendance, worship, faith
537
2022-20-11
Sunday, 11 December 2022 02:20 PM
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