“Trustworthy churches.”

That term reads as an oxymoron, given the frequent scandals involving church leaders and national ministries. However, according to a recent national poll in Church Answers, this country is sorely lacking in It. The outlet surveyed both those who attend church regularly and those who do not.

These startling but not surprising numbers summarize that unchurched people believe churches are “generally good” for their communities. But there is a major problem: although churches are relevant, they are not trustworthy. Close to 60% of the unchurched agree to strongly agree that a church has a place in its community, but is it necessary?

Do people need a corporate worship center to exercise their faith and worship their God, if at all?

Are We Forsaking the Assembling of Ourselves?

The U.S. Religion Census reports that 3,500 people leave churches every day—that’s 1.2 million walking out the front door of a congregation annually. Attrition in a church is usually 10 to 15 percent every year. People move, lose interest, or get preoccupied and stop coming to church. It could be any reason. The problem is fewer people are coming to church to fill those empty seats.

“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” (Hebrews

10:25 KJV)

Our assembly has been in trustworthy churches, but so many are “forsaking” it. How can churches rebound and become the backbone of a community? Understand the word “forsake” originally meant “for someone’s sake” or “for their cause.” The very word used in the Bible has now flipped its definition from a reinforced ideology to a negative slight, now meaning “to give up or renounce something.”

Any time a news story comes out about a pastor who fell, a Christian loses their wings and gives up on weekly attendance. Their faith in God may be bruised, but their relationship usually remains with the Lord. What about those who don’t stand by God? What about the Christians who look to God because of these problems in the pulpit?

Feelings are mixed. Many blame God, and others doubt Him. One thing is clear: every Christian questions Him, which is seen in the numbers. Pew Research projects that by 2070, Christians will no longer be the majority faith in America. They believe less than half of the U.S. population will confess a walk with God and tout their Christianity. To underscore that metric, Lifeway created this chart that shows the downward plummet of public confidence in the local church.

Since 1975, church attendance has trended down. Anyone could assume one of many factors, including generational gaps, lack of religious dependence, apathy toward Christian faith, or the groundswell of emotion toward church-related scandal. In 1989, church confidence reached an all-time low at 52%, then it came back, eventually climbing up to 60% during Sept. 11, 2001.

The next year, the bottom fell out from public consensus below 50% for the first time in U.S. history. After a small climb of regained faith in corporate worship, confidence in how people feel in church attendance and the people leading them is hovering at 30%. Dubbed “The Great Dechurching,” it’s estimated that 40 million Americans have left these trustworthy churches in the last 25 years alone. Although that is a number inclusive of all faiths, it shows that the idea of belonging to a church isn’t as cherished as it used to be in decades past.

The Absurdity of Being Trustworthy

What’s strange about these recent numbers is that the unchurched have a better feeling about the “assembling of the saints together” than those who are supposed to be assembling.

A major surprise emerged in the data: Non-attendees view the church as more relevant today than churchgoers! We had to recheck this data several times because it was counter to many common assumptions. Here is what we found.

Among the churched, 40% agree or strongly agree that the church is largely irrelevant today, while only 27% of the unchurched believe the church is largely irrelevant.

Yet, it’s the “unchurched” who don’t attend who see the church’s more redeeming qualities. That’s because of trust. It’s an easy assumption to think people who have been in church for a longer period of time have been burned by hypocrisy, bureaucracy, or instability. They’ve seen and experienced more, but how does trust in the church lead to irrelevance?

People who go to church (81%) trust the building where they worship and their pastors, those who lead them in worship (76%). On the opposite side of the spectrum, fewer people distrust pastors (35%) than the entirety of the churches (30%). Why? The authors of the survey believe they have an idea. It doesn’t begin with what’s being taught in church but rather with the perception of those doing the teaching.

Churches have a self-imposed perception problem not shared with the unchurched: “We’re irrelevant!” Churches have a self-inflicted perception problem swaying the perceptions of the unchurched: “We have scandals and cannot be trusted.”

When people go to church, they build a personal relationship with the people inside and an emotional relationship with the church’s leaders. When they fall, the thud is felt by everyone. For other people who don’t go to church, scandals, rumors, or misperceptions harden their hearts a little, forcing their disinterest in church that much more.

The acclaimed evangelist Billy Sunday was central to the Third Great Awakening (1850s-1920s). Sunday’s perception was one of cynicism when it came to the unchurched staying out of God’s House on account of hypocrisy or any other deemed issue. The interesting thing is that his thought could be taught to all those in the church as well.

“Hypocrites in the Church? Yes, and in the lodge and at the home. Don’t hunt through the church for a hypocrite. Go home and look in the mirror. Hypocrites? Yes. See that you the number one less.”

Sunday’s clarion call should shudder all those reading these numbers. If you want more people in the church, make sure you go first. Allow God to handle His house. You’re always invited, despite where some of those houseguests are sitting.