Rising Spiritual Openness in America
I follow Barna Group. If you don’t know them, they’re kind of the gold standard in Christian statistics. They do the polls. They crunch the numbers. Usually, the results are disheartening: the percent of kids who dump the faith during college, or the percent church attendance has decreased from one year to the next. But their most recent article was titled “Rising Spiritual Openness in America.”. I had to read immediately.
After three years of Covid:
- 80% of Americans believe a spiritual dimension exists.
- Church attendance is down, but spiritual curiosity and openness are on the rise.
- 77% believe in a higher power.
- Young people may be fueling this rise in hunger or spiritual openness. (Don’t miss this post and its FREE printable on how to engage your kids!)
This is, overall, huge.
Rising Spiritual Openness in America.
After an initial wave of excitement, panic struck. Mortifying images ran through my mind—of all the embarrassing, fumbling, bumbling answers I’ve given to non-Christians asking about my faith.
If you’ve been there, you know exactly what I mean.
A girl I recently met retold her experience. She was asked why she goes to church. As she retells her answer, she covers her face with her hand.
“I said, ‘because Jesus is the love of my life!'”
Then she collapsed back in her chair. Her hand stayed over her face.
I’ve been there, too.
Now, what do I do?
So I send this article to my pastor, secretly hoping he’ll hold a church boot camp on the topic. Like maybe he’d run drills until we have our answers ready like scripture tells us to.
Then I send it to my friend Matt. He’s so relaxed and comfortable in conversations like these. He’s an apologetics wiz. Total opposite of me. I needed this guy to teach me his ways.
Instead, they invited me to be a guest on their joint podcast, Your Sunday Drive. If you love topics like these, they’re a great listen.
You can go directly to the Rising Spiritual Openness episode I guested on here.
Either way, I (and I’m sure they) would love to hear what you think. We love to hear what people are encountering. Both the tragedies and the triumphs!
