And while they don’t want to go to church, they’re likely up for attending other church activities with you, LifeWay reports.
Americans who don’t go to church are happy to talk about religion and often think about the meaning of life. They’re open to taking part in community service events hosted at a church or going to a church concert.
But only about a third say they’d go to a worship service, if invited by a friend. Few think about what happens after they die.
Those are among the findings of a new online survey of 2,000 unchurched Americans from LifeWay Research and the Billy Graham Center for Evangelism. In this survey, “unchurched” means those who have not attended a worship service in the last six months, outside of a holiday or special occasion like a wedding.
More than half of Americans who don’t regularly go to church identify as Christians. They are mostly indifferent to organized religion, said LifeWay executive director Scott McConnell.
“Unchurched Americans aren’t hostile to faith,” he said. “They just don’t think church is for them.”
Among their characteristics:
- Two-thirds (67%) are white
- Almost two-thirds (62%) went to church regularly as a child
- Just over half (53%) are male
- About half (47%) have a high school diploma or less
- About a third (32%) consider themselves nonreligious
- One in 5 identifies as Protestant, 1 in 4 as Catholic
But even though they aren’t interested in church, few of the unchurched are turned off by conversations about faith, said McConnell.
Almost half say they discuss religion freely if the topic comes up (47%). A third say they listen without responding (31%), while 11 percent change the subject.
Only about a third say someone has explained the benefits of being a Christian to them (35%).
The fear some Christians have of offending their friends …
