What is church life like these days for Americans, the religious research division of Barna Group asked.
“Millions of active participants find their church experiences to be lacking,” Barna Group President David Kinnaman said in a report released Monday.
Young adults and Catholics are among those experiencing a striking disaffection with church, researchers found.
Faith leaders can’t take their flocks for granted, Kinnaman said, even though many churchgoers report that attending provides them with a rich and diverse set of connections to God and others.
Most people surveyed, 66 percent, feel they’ve had a “real and personal connection with God” at church, researchers said. Yet, when asked about frequency, they report the encounters as “rare.” And about a third of those polled who attend said they have never felt God’s presence in the congregational setting.
The report, released Monday, was based on a recent poll or more than 1,000 adults across the U.S. in December 2010. The maximum sampling error is reported as plus or minus 3 percentage points.
About 26 percent said their life had been greatly changed or affected by attending church. Another one-fourth said church had been somewhat influential. Almost half, 46 percent, said churchgoing had not changed their life at all.
“One of the most significant gaps uncovered by the research was the fact that most people cannot recall gaining any new spiritual insights the last time they attended church,” the report states.
On the positive side, 68 percent said attending church makes them feel like “part of a group of people who are united in their beliefs and who take care of each other in practical ways.” Only 23 percent said church feels “like a group sharing the same space in a public event but who were not connected in any real way.”
Many heated discussions occur about the optimal size for a church, the Barna report states, but the data suggests that “church experiences do not differ all that much based on the size of the church.”
Generational differences are striking, researchers found. The youngest adults polled, 18 to 27 years old, are significantly less likely to describe positive outcomes to attending.
Among those who who to church at least monthly and who say their religious faith is very important in their life, only 76 percent of Catholics said they felt part of a group that cares for each other, compared with 89 percent for mainline Protestants, such as Baptists, Lutherans, Methodist and Presbyterians. And 90 percent of other Protestants, such as nondenominational evangelical Christians, said they felt part of a caring congregation.
Only 72 percent of Catholics polled reported feeling a real and personal connection with God, compared with 85 percent of mainline Protestants and 88 percent of evangelicals.
Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com
