The Second Largest "Religious Group" in America

The word is out today (http://www.pewforum.org/Unaffiliated/nones-on-the-rise.aspx) that a new category has become the second largest religious group in America - bigger than Methodists, bigger than Southern Baptists, and getting close to being half as big as all Protestants put together.  What is this fast-growing group that more and more Americans are identifying with?  Its name is "None."

The story is also reported in USA Today: http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/1618445.

When asked about their religious affiliation, now 1 in 5 Americans say they identify with no religion at all.  These are not atheists.  These are not agnostics.  Those two groups have their own categories, and they aren't even close to the size of those who check "None."  The number of people who check "None" as their religious preference has grown 5% in the last 5 years.  To me, this is staggering.

Who are these people checking "no religious affiliation"?  They are people who claim to have their own faith - they describe themselves as "spiritual" - but they've given up on the church.  They are people who see the church as being too self-absorbed, too focused on internal politics, on self-preservation, and not on the needs of the world around us.

The younger the person surveyed, the more likely they checked "no religious affiliation."  For adults under 30 years of age, 1 in 3 chose this category.  Folks, we are losing the youngest generations!

1% growth per year!

Currently, on any given Sunday morning, only 17-18% of the population is in church.  So now, on a typical Sunday, the number of people who are gathered to worship is smaller than the number of people who have given up on the church.

How do we fix this?  How can we respond?  What we do together as a church must be about Christ and not about us.  We have got to care more about the people we're failing to reach than we do about being comfortable and satisfied.  Satan is winning this war, and it seems to often that we're happy to cooperate with his plan to make the church seem irrelevant as we discuss buildings and furniture and traditions while neglecting people who live in spiritual darkness and pay the price every day.