U.S. Unchurched Population Nears 100 Million

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Mar 23 2007

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Kevin Bussey

Posted at 5:01 am under Christian, church, interesting, polls, research, un-churched

Over the past decade, the unchurched population has remained stable at one third of the American population, the latest Barna Group survey showed.

The Barna study found that 33 percent of adults are classified as unchurched â people who have not attended a religious service of any type during the past six months. The statistic has remained relatively the same since 1994 when 36 percent were reported to be unchurched.

Still, the unchurched population in numbers is staggering. An estimated 73 million adults are presently unchurched. The number nears 100 million when teens and children are added to the population segment. That also includes an estimated 13 to 15 million born-again adults and children. On its own, the unchurched population of the United States would be the eleventh most-populated nation on earth, the Barna Group noted.

Among Christians, only 1 percent of evangelical Christians, 16 percent of non-evangelical born-again Christians, and 32 percent of self-claimed Christians who are not born again were found to be unchurched.

Read about it here.

[From me]

Obviously we have a lot of work to do. What I found it strange that anyone who considers themselves a Christian would not go to church. I can’t imagine not having the hope that Christ offers.

What do you think?

One response so far

One Response to “U.S. Unchurched Population Nears 100 Million”

Dozeron 28 Mar 2007 at 11:58 am 1

I can’t believe I didn’t see this posting until today…

I CAN Imagine a Christian who does not attend church. I think it was J. Vernon Magee who told of a young preacher who got rundoff from a church, who was so upset, he was crying just not believing that people he loved so much, and devoted his life to in church, could be so mean. To his surprise, Jesus was sittin on the curb out in front of the church. So he started talking to Him, telling him all about it. Jesus responded, “you know son, I understand what you are talking about completely. They rund me off from here a while back too and ain’t let me back in yet.”

There’s a lot of folks in church who bear fruit. Many who bruise fruit. I’m bruised myself. I went to college to become a Civil Engineer and my brother thought that was so cool. My nickname Dozer comes from my older brother Preston who is a contractor in Memphis. He encourages me so much. Just last night we were talking about this very same subject. He knows all the hurt I’ve endured at the hand of God’s people and yet I keep right on pushing, doing the groundwork preparing the earth for Jesus to build on.

As a recovering Pharisee, as well as a pastor, you know the cruelty and certainly know about bruised fruit. I read about your friend who got his girlfriend pregnant.

I too had a friend. His name was coincidentally Brian too. He left high school, started smoking weed and partying and I pulled away. I was able to reconnect with him once about 6 years ago. Unfortunately he had pancreatic cancer and was dying at home. His wife and kids left and he was being taken care of by his mom. He could barely speak. One thing he always asked about everytime we spoke was that song we used to listen to when we were in High School, “I wanna die.” I tried to encourage him, ‘no Brian, please try to hang on to life.’ He just repeated, “no I need to, I need to.” Next time I saw his face he was in a casket.

I didn’t put 2 and 2 together until after the funeral. I purchased an old CD of the late Keith Green singing a song I loved so much, but had not heard in over 20 years. The song was “Make my life a Prayer.” When the 2nd verse rolled around it just destroyed me something awful. My friend on his deathbed, who nearly all of us Christians in our arrogance just assumed rejected the gospel and ran away from Jesus because we shunned him, actually understood better than we all did, and was trying to share the real Jesus with me.

That verse….I want to die, to let you give Your life to me, so I might live, to share the hope You gave to me, Your love set me free…. seems like we need to pray that today and everyday.