According to Religion News Service, the median sized Christian church in America had 137 people attending in 2,000. By 2021, that number had shrunk to 65. According to Jake Meador, writing in The Atlantic, more than 40 million Americans have stopped attending church in the past 25 years.

Why is this happening? The pandemic has been a factor, but the trend began two decades earlier. The church’s failure to address abuse within the congregation has been another factor. But in a new book titled The Great Dechurching, authors Jim Davis and Michael Graham argue that there is a larger reason: contemporary American life simply does not make room for church. 

Referencing Davis and Graham, Meador concludes that “Contemporary America … is designed to maximize individual accomplishment as defined by professional and financial success.” This leaves “little time or energy for forms of community that don’t contribute to one’s own professional life or, as one ages, the professional prospects of one’s children.” The church has become superfluous.

There is yet another reason for the decline: Christian parents and grandparents have failed to pass on the faith to younger generations. Samantha Saad, writing for Christianity Today, reported on a recent Ipsos Global Advisor survey of nearly 2,000 adults that found “countries with more baby boomers who say they believe in God … are less likely to have members of Gen Z who do.” It works the other way too. Countries with fewer believing boomers are likely to have more members of Gen Z with faith.

Why would Gen Z belief be down where Boomer belief is up, and vice versa? Boomers have failed to pass on the faith and, in some cases, have become an obstacle to it. A former youth pastor once said to me: “I’ve seen kids do well” – in terms of faith – “whose parents were genuine Jesus-followers. I’ve seen kids do well with addicted, abusive parents who don’t know God. But I’ve never seen kids do well whose parents talk like they’re Christians but live like they’re not.”

In the Bible, God “commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know [what God had done], even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children.” It is not the church but rather parents who are primarily responsible to teach their children about God and model his ways.

But how can parents go about that? They must rid their lives of hypocrisy, as my youth pastor friend pointed out. That is a given. But what else can parents do?

Biola University’s Dave Keehn writes that parents must be intentional about passing on the faith. While faith is more “caught than taught,” it still needs to be taught. Personal experiences of God’s faithfulness must be shared. We should not expect it to happen by osmosis.

Parents should also pray for their children. This might include praying for them to grow wise, experience the reality of their connection to God, and have positive spiritual influences. One such influence might be a believing spouse.

Keehn encourages parents to look for teaching moments. Since people learn best from experience, relationship challenges offer a wealth of opportunities to point out God’s character and commands. So do TV shows, movies, and news reports.

Parents can go beyond looking for teachable moments; they can create them. This can be done by talking about church at Sunday lunch. What did you like, or think was important in the pastor’s sermon? Was there anything in it that we can apply to life? What did you talk about at youth group this week?

In the Book of Judges, we read that “Israel served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and the elders who outlived him….” Just one generation later, we read: “After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done….”

We are living in a similar era. Parents should not wait for a national spiritual awakening to bring change. They should present a thought-provoking faith in the context of a joyful life. Nothing less will suffice.