(Part 1) The Great Dechurching
"The gospel you preach determines the disciples you make. And if forty million people walked out the back doors of our churches in twenty-five years, maybe it's time we ask: what gospel have we been preaching?"
I have a confession to make.
I'm a stats guy. I know, I know…nothing screams "fun dinner party guest" like someone who gets genuinely excited about data sets and trend lines. My wife has learned to spot that look in my eyes when I stumble onto some fascinating rabbit-trail demographic study. (To be fair, it’s not that hard to notice. I begin resembling this guy.)
But sometimes the numbers tell a story so stark, so undeniable, that even my numbers-averse friends have to pay attention.
Here's what grabbed my attention: In the last twenty-five years, forty million people in America (that's roughly one in four regular churchgoers) have simply stopped attending church. They didn't all deconstruct. They didn't all have church hurt (though some certainly did). Most of them just... drifted away. Got busy. Decided Jesus wasn't asking that much of them anyway.
Put another way, we've lost more ground since 2000 in America than we gained in both the First and Second Great Awakenings and all the Billy Graham crusades combined.
Let that sink in for a moment.
When the Factory Stops Making Cups
Here's a thought experiment. Imagine you own a cup factory. You've got all the machinery humming, workers showing up, raw materials coming in. Lots of exciting noise, lots of movement. But when you look at what's actually coming off the assembly line, you notice something odd: only every fourteenth item is a cup—which is, you know, what the factory is supposed to make.
Would you say that your factory is good at making cups?
Of course not. You'd look at the other thirteen things and say, "Well, I guess it's mostly doing... something else."
Now let me ask an uncomfortable question: Are the current systems, processes, and playbooks of the Western church actually good at making disciples of Jesus? Or is a Jesus-follower—someone who genuinely wants to live like Jesus, love like Jesus, and live out the good news of the Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed—more of a happy accident? A fortunate byproduct that emerges every once in a while despite our systems rather than because of them?
Because when forty million people walk out the door, that's not a marketing problem. That's not a generational preference issue. That's not even primarily a political or cultural problem.
That's a systemic problem.
The Gospel We've Been Selling
Let's be painfully honest about the gospel many of us unknowingly inherited. It sounds something like this: "Jesus died for your sins so you can go to heaven when you die. Say this prayer or do this thing. Boom, you're in. See you on Sunday if you feel like it."
We at The Bonhoeffer Project call this the 'Forgiveness-Only gospel'. It’s one of six incomplete gospels we believe pervade the Western Church. It's technically true, in the same way that saying "cars have wheels" is technically true. But if that's all you say about cars, you're missing the engine, the steering wheel, the seats, and essentially, the larger point of the car.
This truncated or incomplete gospel creates an Eternal Retirement Plan Christianity. People receive the gift, then spend the rest of their lives... well, pretty much however they want, just waiting for that eternal 401(k) to kick in.
No wonder people drift away. We've offered them insurance after death, not a life with Jesus. We've given them theological premises to agree with, not the model to follow. We've provided a transaction, not a transformation. As a result, we’ve separated conversion from discipleship, as if a "yes" to Jesus is anything but a "yes" to his gracious invitation to follow Him.
And pastors, you know the result. We spend the rest of our ministry lives desperately trying to upsell them on what feels like optional add-ons. "Please, please join a small group! Show up for this serving opportunity! Please read your Bible more! It'll be good for you, your life will get better, I promise!" We're constantly trying to convince them to take up the options in the contract we told them were totally unnecessary.
Take a look through the Gospels, Jesus never separated conversion from discipleship. When he said "Follow me," that was the good news. The invitation itself, the chance to apprentice under him, to learn his way of life, to be part of his kingdom work, to be in Christ, that's the whole package.
The gospel you believe determines the disciples you make. And if we've been preaching anything less than the gospel Jesus proclaimed, we’re going to get less than the disciples Jesus commissioned us to make.
A Question We Must Answer
Now for some genuinely good news that even my non-stats-geek friends can appreciate:
Something unexpected is happening among Millennials and Gen Z. Against all predictions, there's a turning back toward Jesus—particularly among young men. Recent studies show Gen Z is now attending church more often than any other generation.
To be fair, attending a church community 1.8 times per month isn't exactly revival-level commitment. We haven't solved the problem. But friends, this is a stirring. This is wind in the sails if we're wise enough to hoist them.
I've seen it personally in London, Oxford, Portland, New York, and across Southern California. In churches and on college campuses. I've heard the stories from leaders across the country. There's a hunger, a curiosity, a deep longing in this generation for more...more substance, more truth, more Jesus.
But here's my question…in fact, it’s the question that caused me to make a large vocational shift and accept the invitation into this role.
As this generation walks back through the doors of our churches, what will they find?
Will they find Jesus? Or, will they find a brand? A system? A set of programs optimized for... well, for producing those thirteen other things instead of cups?
Right now, the Spirit is stirring. But institutional Christianity in the West is struggling. And in this moment, we can do one of two things:
1) We can tend to our programs and sustain the status quo (which, reminder, has resulted in forty million people walking away). Or,
2) We can tend to the fire of renewal. We can do the disorienting work of admitting all *this isn’t achieving what we hoped it would. We can be reoriented by Jesus and His Way. We can be good stewards of this moment. We can catch the wind.
Next article: (Part 2) The Great Re-Commissioning—what we actually do about all this.
