Evangelicals in Beantown:

The Catholic church is to Boston what evangelicals are to Wheaton or Colorado Springs, says Harrell. The influence of the Catholic church is everywhere from parishes to politics. Harrell says Catholics often did not leave the church because of the abuse scandal, but they were shocked at how the church handled it. "That’s what sent people through the roof," he says.

A recent survey found that only one-third of Catholics attend mass weekly. Despite the low attendance, Catholics tend to stick it out with the church they grew up in, Harrell says. At least, they are reluctant to attend church elsewhere.

But many do find themselves at evangelical churches like Park Street. "We get a lot of recovering Catholics," Harrell says.

There is rarely a direct move from the Catholic Church to Park Street, Harrell says. Rather people spend years disenchanted with church before trying out a new one. They are also looking for something more demanding than the church they grew up in.

Minority driven
Though former Catholics and university students have boosted the rolls of evangelical churches, most church growth comes from minority communities. Evangelical students have helped fuel the start of many young churches, Harrell says, but ethnic minorities, usually Asian, Brazilian, and Haitian, start more than half of new churches.

It’s actually more than that, says Jeff Bass, executive director of Emmanuel Gospel Center, a Boston ministry that works to build churches in the city. Bass says that Boston’s cultural elite of white, affluent professionals who live in loft apartments are the city’s least churched demographic. The center’s own research, Bass says, shows that 90 percent of all church plants are among minorities.