A Correction: Evangelical Churches Are Losing Millennials, Not “Megachurches”

Last updated on: October 1, 2014 at 9:59 am by Brandan Robertson

A Correction: Evangelical Churches Are Losing Millennials, Not “Megachurches” 2014-10-01T09:59:04-04:00 Brandan Robertson

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Yesterday, a piece went live on Huffington Post about my work with Evangelicals for Marriage Equality. In that piece, I made a statement about the decline of evangelical influence in America. However, the statement I made was originally in the context of a 30 minute conversation with the reporter about how the evangelical stance on issues like Marriage Equality are causing many millennials to leave the church, and I wanted to offer a correction to the printed quote. In the HuffPost piece, I said:

“Every megachurch in our country is declining in numbers,” Robertson said. “Every seminary. Churches are falling apart. There are moral issues that keep coming up in evangelicalism, and it’s time to start thinking. It’s time to figure out what we’re doing wrong.”

Taken at face value, the statement simply cannot be verified based on our most up to date polling. First of all, my intention was not to talk about megachurches in particular, but evangelical churches as a whole, however, I did use the word “megachurch” (which is the style of most evangelical churches even if they don’t have the numbers to officially place them in that category), which was incorrect.

In my conversation with the reporter, I had also just referenced the falling apart of many prominent evangelical megachurches and ministries (such as Mars Hill Church, Sovereign Grace Ministries, Harvest Bible Chapel and many other examples) facing moral crises and decline. Nonetheless, all of these details did not come through in the final piece and my obvious overstatement about “every megachurch” and “every seminary” being in decline is incorrect.

However, when placed in the context of evangelical churches and millennials, this quote is absolutely true.

According to a survey released by the Pew Research Institute, only 58% of millennial evangelicals regularly attend a church service. According to Dave Kinnaman of Barna, there is a 43% drop in Christian church attendance between the teen and early adult years. And in a separate Pew Research Institute poll from 2011, 43% of millennial evangelicals support same-sex marriage.

The point that I was trying to make is this: Evangelicals are losing millennials at record numbers. This is distressing to me, as a millennial evangelical, who loves my tradition and believes we still have something of worth to contribute to the world. But in order to win my generation back, we most certainly will have to “start thinking” and “figure out what we’re doing wrong”. And the numbers give us a pretty clear indication what that might be.

For More Information on the Exodus of Millennial from the Church, Check Out:

Why young evangelicals are leaving the church by Laura Sessions Stepp

Religion Among Millennials from Pew Forum

Barna Millennial Project

One Third of Millennials Leave Religion because of Anti-Gay Policies on Huff Post

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