Rev Bill

Several weeks ago I posted about learnings George Bullard of The Columbia Partnership gleaned from the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey 2008 conducted by the Pew Forum.

Here are 2 more things he emphasizes:

1. “The survey finds that the number of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith today (16.1%) is more than double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children. Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion.” [5]

This is not surprising — most of us affiliated with churches know that the “young adult” faction in our churches is the hardest to reach. I ordered a book Edward Hammett wrote — Reaching People Over 40 While Keeping People Over 60 — the other day. I look forward to reading it and maybe sharing some of the ideas!

2. “The United States is on the verge of becoming a minority Protestant country; the number of Americans who report that they are members of Protestant denominations now stands at barely 51%. Moreover, the Protestant population is characterized by significant internal diversity and fragmentation, encompassing hundreds of different denominations loosely groups around three fairly distinct religious traditions–evangelical Protestant churches (26.3% of the overall adult population), mainline Protestant churches (18.1%) and historically black Protestant churches (6.9%).” [5]

The fact that Protestantism will be in a minority does not surprise me, but dies make me wonder what we can do to combat this.

You can read the entire Pew Form report here — and Bullard’s thoughts here.

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