Gone but not Forgotten
Church leaving and returning
Philip Richter and Leslie J Francis, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1998
Churches spend a lot of energy seeking to bring in new people. Yet while we encourage people to come in through the front door, a huge number are leaving by the back door. As the cover blurb of this book says:
For every adult in church, four other adults used to attend regularly but have given up... the biggest challenge facing churches in England today is not how to recruit new members, but the problem of church leavers.
We may think this problem only affects some kinds of church, but this is not so. The introduction says:
Even among charismatic fellowships there was evidence of decline, with 6 per cent fewer adults attending in 1996 than in 1995
The authors point out that
Even allowing for the fact that a significant proportion of these may be exaggerating their past involvement or may have attended involuntarily as a child, there is a considerable number of people in the British population who either have been church members or have been happy to attend a church at some time in their lives, but do so no longer.
Why people leave
The authors set out to discover why people leave, and what the churches can do about it. They did a series of detailed interviews with church leavers, to provide qualitative data, and a larger number of questionnaires to provide quantitative data. From their results, they found eight major reasons for leaving:
- loss of faith
- changing values
- stages of faith development / personal pilgrimage
- 'changes and chances' (changed circumstances)
- childhood upbringing
- the cost of commitment
- disillusionment with the church / unfulfilled expectations
- belonging factors
They discuss each of these areas in some detail, as well as exploring the more general 'retreat from commitment' that affects society today. (It is not just churches that are struggling: membership of the Young Conservatives has dwindled from over half a million to fewer than 8,000). They also discuss the distinction that many people today make between being 'spiritual' and being 'religious.' (We look at this in session 5 of 'Facing the Challenge').
What can churches do about it?
Finally, the writers look at the practical implications for churches, such as the value of finding ways to encourage people not to leave:
One of the most disconcerting findings from our questionnaire survey was that 92% of leavers reported that no one from the church had talked with them about why they were attending church less frequently, during the six weeks after their church going dropped off.
This research is not just theoretical. It is directed towards helping churches to keep people. The authors say:
These findings offer churches an important insight into the priorities which may be most effective in pastoral strategy to address the problem of church leaving.
An important part of their research was about what kind of leaver is most likely to come back to church and what kind of leaver is least likely to return. They found that churches are most likely to retain their members and encourage leavers to return when they:
- avoid pigeon-holing people into tidy membership categories
- notice and react sensitively when people are leaving
- avoid blowing out any embers of faith
- meet and respect people where they are culturally
- meet and respect people where they are spiritually
- help people grow in their faith
- offer practical support as people cope with life's changes and chances
- encourage parents in the upbringing of their children
- offer people a gospel worth investing in
- authentically embody the gospel
- offer people a sense of true community
This is a helpful book, based on some useful research. Every church leader should read it.
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