How have churches been affected by “the great dechurching?” How can we help people stay connected to the local church? And, just as important, how does the great dechurching affect immigrant and Asian American churches?
Michael Graham, co-author of the book The Great Dechurching, spoke to SOLA Council President Steve Chang and SOLA Editorial Board member Kevin Yi about the phenomenon of dechurching.
His findings on Asian Americans leaving the church were particularly alarming:
Because Asian American dechurching is worse than any other ethnicity. The dechurching that’s going on there is twice the rate of those who are Hispanic and Latino. And I think 40 or 50% faster than those who are Anglo or African American.
But Graham was also quick to point out that it was hard to draw further statistical conclusions about Asian Americans leaving the church, simply because there isn’t a lot of data about Asian American Christians.
Other topics they discuss include:
- Declining religious affiliation among Asian Americans
- Church attendance and pastoral care for congregants who are mobile and don’t stay in one church their whole lives
- Assisting newcomers connect with the church
- Parental influence on church attendance
- Telling a better story
We hope that this conversation helps all Christians to think about how we can better study the Asian American church. We also hope it will encourage pastors to think about how to serve their congregations to prevent dechurching and help former members to return and find true community.
Watch their interview below or on our YouTube page. You can also listen via Podcast.
Editor’s Note: We have provided a rough transcript of the first 10 minutes of the conversation below. It has been lightly edited for clarity. Please note there may be typos or grammatical errors.
Steve Chang: Hey, I’m so glad to be here today. And so excited because we’re with Michael Graham, the co author of the book, The Great Dechurching. It’s a great, great book. Came out about, was it about a month and a half, two months ago? And it’s been on every pastor’s bookshelf. And I got it, read it through from beginning to end and had so many questions.
And I’m, and we’re going to spend a little bit of time with Michael Graham. Michael Graham is the programming director for The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. He’s also the executive producer of As In Heaven. He is just a smart guy, beyond that. And I’m also with Kevin Yi, partner in crime at SOLA, he’s also with Rooted. Michael, it’s so good to be with you today.
Michael Graham: It’s good to be with you as well.
Steve Chang: I know you’ve been in probably about 120 interviews. I think that’s what you said. And so we’re going to try not to go over a lot of the questions that you’ve been answering dozens and dozens of times, but rather try to get at this from an angle that is of particular interest to Kevin and me and our audience.
Our audience is the Asian American church or Asian American pastors. And that’s a segment that we’re most interested in. So if you would humor us with that: of the 7000 [survey participants], what percentage, if you know the answer, were Asian Americans?
Michael Graham: It’s a great question. I don’t know off the top of my head. And if anybody is listening to this, and wants to know. I’ve had so many conversations just like this one, with various typically West Coast-centric conversations with Asian American pastors and Asian American church communities that want to know more information about what is going on among Asian American dechurching. If you’re listening to this, and you either have means or you have friends who have significant means, and you want to know a lot more about this subject, I would like to do a fourth phase, in this study, I’ll need about $50,000 to $75,000 to do it justice.
But I have a lot of questions about what’s going on, and a lot of curiosity, frankly. There’s no doubt in my mind that the demand is there for people who want actionable answers for what’s going on among Asian American dechurching. Because Asian American dechurching is is worse than any other ethnicity. The dechuching that’s going on there is twice the rate of, of those who are Hispanic and Latino. And I think 40 or 50% faster than those who are Anglo or African American.
And so here’s the challenge that I have: I can’t say too much about what’s going on among Asian American dechurching because of the statistical significance of sample sizes. The standard deviations that I have of the Asian American subset of the database, I can’t say too much, but with with, with statistical significance, besides the fact that Asian Americans tend to be dechurching at kind of alarming rates.
Now, what I want to know more about is what’s going on in first generation, second generation, in third generation immigrants. I want to know that in any Asian American, Latino, Hispanic and immigration occurring from other places as well. And I want to know more about childhood, there’s a couple of other areas, I have a list of about 20 areas that there’s more to be explored on that would be pastorally and missionally actionable. I mean, that’s the whole point of all this stuff you get information so that you can make better decisions in terms of philosophy of ministry, contextualization, and just cultural engagement.
Steve Chang: Can I ask Michael, what made you say the first statement to begin with that they are dechurching at twice the rate or 40% or something like that?
Michael Graham: Yeah, yeah, it was if off the top of my head I feel like it was, I don’t know 37, 38 or 39% of Asian Americans had de-churched. And I think it’s like 17 or 18%, among Hispanic and Latino, and in the high 20s or around 30% for African American and White folks.
What I’m not sure about, because of the sample sizes, is the kind of the departure of second or third generation Asian Americans departing from, say, a non Christian, you know, religion, you know, maybe they’re leaving Shinto or Buddhism or, you know, a different tradition like that, or is it more out of Christianity?
We do know that people are leaving those things, what I just don’t have is a sample size that’s large enough to be able to say, you know, it’s just, I’m not comfortable with the standard deviations, making significant pronouncements of “Oh, here’s what’s happening, Asian American dechurching is happening faster, you know, not because of Christianity but because of these other traditions” or whatever. I just don’t know, and so I’m cautious. I’m a math-science person, so is Ryan, so I wish I could say more, I just don’t know.
Steve Chang: You can look at Pew Research.
Michael Graham: Yeah, I saw that. Yeah. The, yeah, the religion among Asian Americans.
Steve Chang: That might be something to look at. I was talking to sociologist Jerry Park, from Baylor University. He’s involved with the research, I believe, it’s Hartford Institute that they do, every two years or something.
I was talking to him, he says that Asians are typically underrepresented, under-sampled, whenever these types of research are done. Several reasons they give. The language barrier is always an issue. And so you might get, you know, if you’re getting like, X number of Asian Americans who have dechurched, a part of that is it’s not being balanced out by those who can’t speak English, who are still remaining in the church. And the English speakers may be dechurching a little bit faster because they’re leaving the immigrant church, and they haven’t gone to that phase of life where they were coming back to the church. And he also said, and I agree with him anecdotally, that Asian Americans typically don’t like to express themselves in surveys.
Michael Graham: Correct.
Steve Chang: And so, Kevin, what is your thought on on some of these things?
Kevin Yi: Well, I mean, yeah, this is, this has always been one of the things whenever there’s a book written like this, and there’s surveys done. The question we always have is, how did you survey the first generation? Because that’s, you know, traditionally been an issue.
The Pew Research Study, actually, I think, lines up Michael, with some of the research that you guys have seen, because they said 34% of Asian Americans are affiliated with Christianity 2020 to 2023, versus what it was, it was 42% in 2012. And so those numbers seem like they’re pretty, pretty accurate.
So I appreciate the fact that you’re, you know, you’re you’re humble enough to say that, you know, you don’t have all the data yet. And so the answer right now is I don’t know. But at the same time, I do think that there’s a combination of the stuff that’s going on generationally that we have to take a look at, that I think is huge, and key to sort of understanding what’s happening in the Asian American church.
But at the same time, I also think that we have enough of the data to suggest that there’s definitely something that we need to look into. So I’m pretty concerned about these numbers. You know, I’m pastoring right now, that sort of college to young adult age group, the group that traditionally is the one that’s dechurching faster than anybody else. And so, you know, I know that, in your book, you mentioned a ton of things that pastors need to be concerned about what pastors need to be thinking about with regards to this group. But I’m wondering what you have to say to, you know, those of us that are in the thick of this kind of ministry, where we are dealing with students, families and young adults who are mobile, very, very mobile, I think that’s probably the hardest part of being a pastor right now, is the fact that with that particular age group, they’re so quick to get another job in another location or go mobile and or, you know, work remote and, you know, travel here and travel there. And even for the ones that are in town, you know, they love their travel, right, they love, you know, taking a break on a weekend and so their attendance is down, and I’m afraid looking at all the data that like, oh, is this the stuff that makes people that makes it so easy for people just kind of fall out of church?