Quitting Church: Why the Faithful Are Fleeing and What to Do about It

Julia Dunn provides an insightful look at why mainline denominations are becoming slowly emaciated in the United States. Using her background as a seasoned religious reporter and editor, combined with her own personal challenges in finding a spiritual home, Dunn painfully illustrates how faith communities continue to fail to connect, educate, comfort and support their members. In particular, she outlines why women and singles are leaving churches in increasing numbers. What some may find surprising are her insights from the perspective of a self-described born-again evangelical. While there is some belief that churches are losing membership over the inconsistencies between what is taught and how church communities actually behave, Dunn illustrates the desire among some wandering evangelicals for more stringent Biblical following. Well researched, using material by respected pollster George Barna, Quitting Church spends more time understanding the problems than on offering solutions. For any church attempting to fill their pews, that is a critical first step before working on solutions.

While I'm not yet finished reading Quitting Church, I must say that this volumn is very informative. The data in the first chapter supports other reseach reports that I've seen. For practicing Christians, Quitting Church explains the departure of people from traditional worship. Not all are fleeing to participate in contemporary worship. The decline in serious Bible study and shallow theology (or no theology) is distasteful to those who try to live by the expectations of Jesus. I recommend Quitting Church as a serious read. It would also be good as a good study for church book discussion group.

Review: by Stephanie S. Sawyer Quitting Church By Julia Duin, Religion Editor, The Washington Times Baker Books 2008 ISBN 978-0-8010-6823-2 When Julia Duin, Religion Editor of The Washington Times, gave us Quitting Church, she filled a void oft felt by scores of parishioners and former congregants that is simply not heard in the institution of the church. We have waited for this book a long time. Julia defines and brings to light what thousands of us who are fleeing already know deep within. ("It was not enriching their experience of God," p.170). Quitting Church will not only enlighten those staff who will dare to read it, but also break the isolation of those who know the despair of the loss so deeply felt after having known the glory of what a church can be. Julia reveals the depth of the errant attitudes in the church today as it has drifted from the powerful proclamative and charismatic draws known forty to fifty years ago at the height of the Jesus Movement. The church's appeal through open community, discipleship development, worship in the Spirit, and spontaneous living from the 60's to the 80's has subsided into ritualized liturgy as scandal rocked the leadership. Rebounding the broken congregations revealed little but lack of pastoral care, skeptical staff unwilling to visit parishioners, and a lack of Biblical teaching for the sake of winning over a growing culture focus population. `Openness to the Spirit' during a service with its spontaneous worship became a grasped memory despite present desire. Those grounded in the Jesus Movement fled having known the fullness of what the church can truly be. Every pastor, every priest, and all staff authority should read Quitting Church for the sake of growing community within the flock. Health of the parish, pitfalls in direction, and discernment in leadership are all covered by one of our nations finest religion writers.

This book is a good start at defining the problems that lead many otherwise faithful people to quit church. Based on a gathering of statistical data and interviews with many people, the author identifies seven of the biggest reasons people give for leaving church. This is truly an eye-opening read, and I hope that pastors, ministers, priests, and other spiritual leaders will read this and take heed. I'm not sure the author knows what the potential solutions are in detail, but I hope that recognizing the problems will be the first step in seeking the solutions that are so desperately needed.

Sunday Morning, Staying Home By TERRY EASTLAND September 2, 2008; Page A21 Quitting Church By Julia Duin (BakerBooks, 186 pages, $17.99) [Sunday Morning, Staying Home] By now we know that evangelical Protestants -- generally supportive of Republican candidates but eagerly courted by Democrats this year -- are a crucial voting bloc in the November election. Thus it was big news when Rick Warren, the evangelical megachurch pastor, recently asked both John McCain and Barack Obama about their religious beliefs, in part to address the concerns of church-going "value voters." But what about the evangelicals themselves? Is all well within their communities? Is their own passion for church-going as strong as their supposed political passion? According to Julia Duin, a religion reporter for the Washington Times, more and more evangelicals are in fact fleeing their churches. Indeed, Ms. Duin regards church-quitting, at least among evangelicals, as nothing less than an epidemic. The problem, in her view, is not in the souls of the church quitters but in the character of the churches they choose to leave. "Something," she observes, "is not right with . . . evangelical church life." The faults she points to -- relying on her own reporting and survey data -- are many. They are surprising, too, running counter to the stereotype of evangelicals bonding happily in their churches. She reports, among other things: a lack of a feeling of community among church members, inducing loneliness and boredom; church teaching that fails to go beyond the basics of the faith or to reach members grappling with suffering or unanswered prayer; pastors who are either out of touch with their parishioners or themselves unhappy, or who fail to shepherd their flocks, or who are caught up in scandal, or who try to control the lives of church members in a high-handed way. She claims that many churches have "inefficient leadership models" and that many, preoccupied with the care of families, neglect single people. Women in particular leave evangelical churches, Ms. Duin says, because they are asked to do too little by their churches. Ms. Duin, who has a seminary degree, writes: "I have been one of those unwanted women for years." In fact, Ms. Duin's interest in her subject is partly autobiographical: She left a church in 2001 and didn't find a new one until 2007. She has lived through the process of church-quitting, and she has interviewed a lot of people with the same experience. There is no doubt some truth in what Ms. Duin reports. But is there truly an epidemic of church- quitting? She says that evangelical churches, which for decades increased their numbers at impressive rates, are today growing "only appreciably." If so, church-quitting may be one reason. But so, too, may be the undisputed demographic fact -- not explored in "Quitting Church" -- that evangelical parents are having fewer children these days. And the church-membership surveys Ms. Duin cites do not include nonde