What’s Actually Killing the Church: A 250-Year Autopsy

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, Todd Rhoades discusses the evolving challenges and perceived 'deaths' of the church from 1776 to today. Despite changes in church attendance and involvement over the centuries, the church continues to endure. Todd emphasizes the importance of not mistaking declining numbers for the demise of the church, highlighting historical patterns of church resilience and transformation. • In 1776, only 17% of colonists were connected to a church, despite the foundational role of faith. • The early church seemed weak but went on to have significant growth. • By 1937, church membership soared to 73%, but much of it was nominal with little personal transformation. • From 2007 to now, there's been a decline in Protestant affiliation, with 'nuns' (non-religious) rising. • The decline in church affiliation has slowed, showing signs of stabilization. • Historical context shows that each era had its unique challenges but the church endured. • Current decline doesn't spell the end; like in history, it may be the start of new growth.

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Transcript

What Killed People In 1776

SPEAKER_00 0:08

In 1776, the thing most likely to kill you was small clock. Today it's arkensey. Completely different killer, but the same result. So here's the question that nobody's asking. We just celebrated the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. What's actually killing the church? And has that changed too? We're gonna talk about

What’s Actually Killing The Church

SPEAKER_00 0:35

that today. Hi there, welcome to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. My name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at chemistry staffing.com. In 1776, the church would actually flunk your dashboard. I read an article this past week on what killed Americans back in 1776 versus what's killing Americans today. I couldn't put the article down. In 1776, when our nation was founded, what were the top killers of people? Smallpox, tuberculosis, dysentery, life expectancy in 1776. This is hard to believe, but in 1776, the life expectancy was 30. So I asked, what did the church look like in 1776?

The Shock Of A Tiny Church

SPEAKER_00 1:20

And here's the shocker. Only about 17% of colonists were even connected to a church. 17%. Powdered wigs and a Bible on every table. That's the myth that we have. But a lot of the founding fathers of the country were people of faith. But drop a church consultant into 1776, and he's going to start writing the obituary of the church right on the spot. And here's the thing: that church consultant would be dead wrong. That's anemic, that anemic little church that was about to explode into the biggest growth run in its history

Low Numbers Aren’t A Death Sentence

SPEAKER_00 2:00

ever. So here's a truth bomb for you. Low numbers have never been a death sentence. Sometimes they're just the starting line.

Full Pews Can Hide A Sick Heart

SPEAKER_00 2:08

So that's the first insight. Second insight I'd love to share for you today is that full buildings, full church buildings, can hide just a really sick heart. So we started talking about 1776. Let's move forward, fast forward to the early 1900s. And in the church, membership is climbing. We talked about the 17% of colonists that were actually connected to a church. By 1937, that 17% had risen to 73%. 73% of people of Americans in 1937 belonged to a church. Two out of three were raised Protestant. Buildings were packed. They looked absolutely bulletproof. They looked thriving. And listen, the scariest diseases can be the quiet ones. Heart disease doesn't announce itself. It builds for decades while you feel fine. And that's exactly what was happening under all of those full church buildings and full pews. What we got over years was inherited faith, nominal membership, belonging to a church without any transformation. The I'm a member of this church, I'm a Presbyterian, I'm a Baptist, but they couldn't tell you why generation happened during this time in the 1900s. The church looked healthiest right when it was quietly underneath everything getting sick. So that's inside number two. Here's what I would say about today.

Today’s Decline As A Diagnosis

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Today's numbers are a diagnosis, not a death certificate. Now, Protestants have been down to about 40% of the country from 51% back in 2007 to 40% in last year, 2025. Nuns, the religious nuns, rose up to 29%. And in 2020, church membership had dropped below half the population for the first time ever. It feels like a funeral, right? But that's just chronic disease, and chronic disease shows up because people live long enough to get it. The cultural Christianity of the 1900s had no pulse pulse underneath. Two generations later, the bill became due, and people stopped showing up because a lot of them had nothing to show up really for. So let's talk and let's wrap this all up.

Why The Church Still Endures

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Differences between 1776, the 1900s, and today. Wrapping that up with kind of what I started with the cause of death. Death is still with us. The average age went from 30 years up to about 80 years. So we added literally 50 years onto the average person's lifespan. But guess what? Death still happened. The patient endures. And here's what kind of hit me the hardest. Every era for every era, the 17, the 1900s, and the 2020s, the church's killer. The thing that really gets to us is totally different. 1776, it was tiny and scattered. In 1900, in 1900s, it was cultural rot behind the full church building. And today it's the drift, it's the nuns. And just like disease, smallpox to heart disease, different century, different killer. But medicine never cured death. And what we do today is not going to cure the ailments that the church has. It's just different. Things just kept outlasting, whatever it was trying to end us at the time. So the church has done the exact same thing for 250 years. And the part the doom scrollers skip is that that same 2025 study showing the decline, it also shows the decline has slowed. Many of those things that had been going down for years have slowed down or leveled off. Attendance has been holding steady in churches for five years running. And guess what? The patient's still breathing. The church is still alive. So here's your bottom line for today. Don't confuse the current cause of decline with the death of the church. Causes change, but the patient, the church, will endure. The obituary's been written every single generation about the church, and every single one of them has been premature.

Reach Out For Staffing Help

SPEAKER_00 6:44

You know what? If your church is in transition or need a little help wondering how this affects you, how your church's smaller attendance might be actually the starting line for something really great. I'd love to hear your story and love to have you reach out to me. You can reach me at podcast at chemistry staffing.com. Love to have a conversation if your church is looking to hire or anything healthy church staff related, hiring, firing, budgeting, re-org. That's what we do at chemistry. Reach out to me anytime, podcast at chemistry staffing.com.

Bottom Line And Goodbye

SPEAKER_00 7:22

All right, that's it for today. Hope you'll join me again right here tomorrow on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.