{"id":21267,"date":"2015-05-22T05:45:55","date_gmt":"2015-05-22T09:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=21267"},"modified":"2015-05-21T23:05:14","modified_gmt":"2015-05-22T03:05:14","slug":"americas-most-churchless-and-dechurched-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2015\/05\/americas-most-churchless-and-dechurched-cities\/","title":{"rendered":"America’s most “churchless” and “dechurched” cities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The Barna group has data about which American cities are the most \u201cunchurched,\u201d breaking that category down further into \u201cchurchless\u201d (people never having been involved in a church) and \u201cdechurched\u201d (people who used to be involved in a church but aren\u2019t now).<\/p>\n

English teacher that I am, I disapprove of the twisted grammar that went into those terms\u2013using the noun \u201cchurch\u201d as a verb so as to add -ed to it, making it a past participle, and then using that as a noun again. But I\u2019ll let that go.\u00a0 I sample some of the findings after the jump.<\/p>\n

At the link, for $99, you can buy a detailed study of individual American cities, showing the religious breakdown, the denominational percentages, and other useful demographic information.<\/p>\n

From What Are the Least Churched Cities in the U.S.?\/Barna Group<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The U.S. has a reputation for being exceptionally religious\u2014and it is true that, historically speaking, churchgoing has played an outsized role in American identity. Still, millions of Americans have little to no connection to local congregations.<\/p>\n

Currently, about four in 10 U.S. adults qualify as \u201cunchurched\u201d under Barna\u2019s definition (38%). Unchurched adults have not attended a church service, except for a holiday or special occasion, at any time within the past six months.<\/p>\n

Churched and unchurched adults are not evenly distributed across the country. Church attendance varies widely from city to city and region to region. Many cities outpace the overall U.S. population when it comes to church avoidance.<\/p>\n

For example, the San Francisco metro area tops the list of America\u2019s most churchless cities: Six in 10 Bay Area residents meet the Barna definition of unchurched (61%). A full list of the nation\u2019s largest metro media markets is shown below, ranked by unchurched population.<\/p>\n

Barna tracks not only overall churchlessness, but also what proportion of unchurched adults are \u201cdechurched\u201d\u2014that is, who used to attend regularly but have not attended at all in the past six months\u2014and what proportion are \u201cnever churched\u201d\u2014meaning they have never in their lives regularly attended a church. Among the general U.S. population, 29% are considered dechurched and 9% are never churched, for a combined total of 38% unchurched. (For a deeper dive into the substantial differences between these two groups, read Churchless by George Barna and David Kinnaman.)<\/p>\n

While San Francisco is number one overall when it comes to churchless residents, it ranks sixth on the never-churched list (14%), outpaced by:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce, FL (17%)<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo, CA (16%)<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 New York, NY (15%)<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Harlingen-Weslaco-Brownsville-McAllen, TX (15%)<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 Chico-Redding, CA (15%)<\/p>\n

However, the California Bay Area takes the top spot when it comes to dechurched adults (48%), ahead of:<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Seattle-Tacoma, WA (44%)<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Portland-Auburn, ME (43%)<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Boston-Manchester, MA (42%)<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY (41%)<\/p>\n

[Keep reading. . .]the U.S.?<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what is it with the west coast?\u00a0 And the east coast, as compared to the far more \u201cchurched\u201d midwest and south?\u00a0 I\u2019m surprised to see a Texas municipality up there so high on the \u201cnever churched\u201d list.\u00a0 Can anyone shed light on Brownsville?<\/p>\n

If you go to the link, you can find a complete \u201cunchurched\u201d ranking of the 117 cities studied.<\/p>\n

I would observe that after the top 9, a majority of the residents of these cities are still \u201cchurched.\u201d<\/p>\n

Any other observations and discussions from this data?<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Barna group has data about which American cities are the most \u201cunchurched,\u201d breaking that category down further into \u201cchurchless\u201d (people never having been involved in a church) and \u201cdechurched\u201d (people who used to be involved in a church but aren\u2019t now). English teacher that I am, I disapprove of the twisted grammar that went […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,25,42],"tags":[3485,484,2276],"class_list":["post-21267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-language","category-social-science","tag-barna-group","tag-church-demographics","tag-unchurched"],"yoast_head":"\nAmerica's most "churchless" and "dechurched" cities<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Barna group has data about which American cities are the most "unchurched," breaking that category down further into "churchless" (people never having\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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