From the Rector

Dear Friends in Christ,

Every year there is some sort of prediction about the death of the church. Usually, it points toward lower membership or attendance. For example, a Gallup headline from last year read, U.S. Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Time. There are all sorts of grim statistics and, when we visit houses of worship, we see with our own eyes that they are almost empty.

However, Saint Philip’s choir just returned from a residency at Wells Cathedral. The cathedral is huge and, on a sweltering summer day, was nearly full when we sang on Sunday. Every day there were 20 or more people who came to hear Evensong. It hardly felt like a lonely outpost of a dying church.

Just last week, a new study came out from Barna Group. Its headline is, A New Chapter in Millennial Church Attendance.

That article states:

In 2021, there was less than a 10-percentage point difference between the church attendance of Millennials, Gen X and Boomers (taken together, today’s 23–75-year-olds). Although Millennials are known for declines in religiosity, data show that, since 2019, the percentage of Millennials reporting weekly church attendance has increased from 21 percent to 39 percent. Among Gen X, attendance has increased 8 percentage points (24% to 32%). While Boomers show an increase in their attendance during the pandemic in 2020 (31% weekly), recent numbers show a decrease in attendance (25% in 2022).

Something that seems counterintuitive has happened: younger people are tuning into church more and older folks are dropping out of church more. At least in 2022.

The pandemic seems to have sparked the need for church that some younger people may not have experienced before COVID-19. Perhaps new ways of offering church online made the church visible and relevant to them—meeting them in their native digital tongue? The reverse, perhaps, is true of people from older generations. They may have become exhausted with everything being online and found connection, community, or meaning elsewhere.

This data is born out at Saint Philip’s—anecdotally at least. I have had a number of conversations with newcomers from emerging generations about becoming part of the parish. I have also had conversations with older people who are looking for other churches or experiencing some deep spiritual unease that finds them searching and questioning in new ways.

I suspect the same forces are at work across generations. A general sense that we need something more is emerging. For those who were not religious, or at least not church attending, this may spark a return to church. For folks who were already attending, this may mean they are experiencing a nudge or push or pull in their spiritual life that has them staying on the couch or wandering down the street to another church.

All of this, I think, highlights that the Holy Spirit is never done moving. Just when we want to write all the obituaries we can for the church, something happens. We are seeing movement and change and what they mean is unclear. What it means to me is that we have an opportunity to do what the church has always done. We can be a place where people encounter Jesus on their faith journey. We can be a place where people find connection in a fractured world, beauty amidst banality, and hope when things seem so grim.

Most of all, people can find God at church. Maybe the pandemic opened us up to new ways to reach folks and opened them up to being reached. Whatever is happening, let us not miss the opportunity to offer all that we can and all that we ever have: a home for those in need of God’s love.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert