The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
Why People Are Quietly Leaving Megachurches—and What Your Church Can Learn
A growing number of church attendees are quietly walking away without announcing their departure, feeling disconnected and unnoticed after years of faithful attendance. This silent exodus happens across churches of all sizes and stems from systems that count people without truly knowing them, performance-driven cultures that prioritize polish over authenticity, and environments where questions and doubts aren't welcomed.
• No one notices when regular attendees stop coming after years of service
• People are craving authenticity over polish and transformation over inspiration
• Many leave because there's no space to wrestle with questions and doubts
• Some feel they don't fit the church "mold" and remain perpetual outsiders
• Leadership can feel distant and untouchable, even to active volunteers
• Most people leave due to small disconnections that accumulate over time, not major theological issues
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Okay, today on the podcast, we are going to talk about a growing number of former megachurch attendees quietly walking away. Okay, now let me preface this all right. I hate differentiating between megachurch, medium-sized church, small church. This is actually some things, but I think they're interesting. That's why I want to talk about it Some things that came out of a Reddit post. Okay, so you have to take the source here. This is a Reddit post, but actually some of the comments I thought were really interesting. I think, sure, they do tend to maybe move toward megachurch because of some of the comments, but we're talking just the number of people that walk away from church. Maybe your church, not a megachurch, but you have people leave and they're not at all doing it in a dramatic exit or any kind of deconstruction story. But this Reddit article had some supposedly anyway, real quotes, but they made sense to me from people who left megachurches. So we're going to talk about that today here on the podcast.
Speaker 1:My name is Todd Rhodes and I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and you are listening to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, where I am also privileged to be your host. Okay, so let's talk about this People leaving churches, whether it's a mega church or a small church. A lot of times people sometimes they leave and they're angry, like they're really ticked off. Sometimes they're not right, they're not angry, they're not making a scene, but they're done Okay. So let's talk about that. I'm going to give you some quotes here and we're going to dissect each one of these, just you and me here, just to talk through some of these, because I think, regardless of the size of your church, you may hear that, but actually, if they're leaving quietly, you may not be hearing this, but this might give you some insight.
Speaker 1:Right, many former attendees, according to this article, shared a pretty similar sentiment and it said that no one noticed I was gone. Here's the quote no one checked in when I stopped attending after five years of weekly service. Okay, let's be honest here. Your systems might be efficient, but are they relational? Pastors, are people known, or are people just counted? And man, this hurts If you've been attending and even volunteering someplace and you're gone for a few weeks and nobody checks on you to make sure that you're doing. Okay, that kind of means that maybe I don't know that your systems might be counting numbers but not really doing very good relationally. So maybe try implementing maybe some small group shepherding Maybe these people aren't in a small group so they're hard to track, I get that but maybe a care ministry, some touch points beyond attendance tracking that could really help this type of person. That kind of quiet leaves a church.
Speaker 1:Another quote some people said they just kind of got tired of the performance-driven culture. Here's the quote in the article. It says I feel like I was watching a concert and a TED Talk, not worshiping or learning about how to follow Jesus. So I get this and I'm not quite sure how to respond about that.
Speaker 1:I think there is a growing tendency over the last 10 years okay, for people to really crave, want authenticity more than polish. They want transformation, not just inspiration, and we're seeing this trend. This is not a new trend. You've heard of it. We've talked about here on the podcast. This is a trend that we're seeing particularly among younger attenders. They're looking for causes. They're looking for that transformation piece. They're looking for authenticity. They don't care. They're looking for authenticity. They don't care if you're polished at all. Matter of fact, they relish the mistakes sometimes.
Speaker 1:So maybe you just need to tweak your weekend planning meetings and ask just not what will wow them, but what will disciple them? What will form them? Zip through a couple more of these. There was no room for doubt or questions. One of the quotes was every sermon ended with an answer, and I needed space to wrestle with the questions. And I think this is a cultural thing. Right, you need to stand firm on the Word of God, absolutely. The Word of God doesn't change Culturally, though. People are having a lot of questions about how to live out their faith, and sometimes we need to give them a little bit of space to do that. So maybe you need to create some safe spaces for some of this theological curiosity, rather than just dictating hey, thus saith the word of God, which it does. But maybe some forums or some Q&A nights or even some moderated Slack or Discord style communities for deeper conversation where people can ask their questions, because everybody has questions. Not everybody's been to seminary, not everybody thinks everything is as cut and dry. They need to talk through it, okay, so maybe that's something you should consider. A couple more of these, I think. Let's see, I couldn't get involved unless I was a clone. Here was a quote, there was a mold to fit in, and if you didn't fit in, you were just a guest forever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the larger the church is, the harder it is. Going back to one of the first questions, harder it is for people to find their place and for people to actually fit in. The larger your church gets, I think, the more you have to work at this. You need to empower those diverse voices and personalities and ages and callings so that you don't just recruit people to fill spots, but that you really get to know people, that you really get to develop people. We've been talking on the podcast here about all the things that AI can do these days, but AI cannot do this. Ai cannot form relationships and cannot make people feel special. Okay, let me do one more here. I think I've got more, but we're running low on time here. Leadership felt distant and untouchable. Okay, I think, obviously.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this happens in larger churches where, if you've got a thousand or three thousand people, it's really hard for people to connect and some people really feel like they need to have that personal handshake and that eye to eye. And you know who I am by name thing. I'm not saying that's bad and it gets harder the larger you go. But here's the quote for this one I served on three teams and still never talked to a pastor. Okay, in large churches this happens easily. Sometimes it shouldn't, but it does. Smaller churches, man. This happens easily. Sometimes it shouldn't, but it does smaller churches, man. This happens too.
Speaker 1:If you don't have a pastor that's really out there, really trying to meet the people and know people, it doesn't make that okay. So here's my thought here you need to model, model humility, you need to be visible, you need to show up in real ways. One thing I read in a book boy, I remember who said this, but it was essentially the idea and I thought this is good. I understand the practicality of it is maybe a little bit more difficult. But if you're the pastor of a church and you withhold your email address from people, that might be a site that you can easily get out of touch, or that you're getting too big and that people are not going to feel not that everybody has to have 100% access, but they need to at least feel like they have access in some way. Show up in real ways, walk the halls, pray with them, be in the lobby. Don't be a green room ghost, okay. So if you're a church leader, hear this.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is the bottom line for today, most people don't leave because of one big issue, believe it or not. Most people don't leave churches because of theology, right, they leave because of small disconnections that nobody noticed. Matter of fact, they don't notice until it's too late and sometimes, unfortunately, man, they never notice because they don't know people are gone, people come and go and pastors, don't know, want to avoid this in your church. Let's talk, man. I'd love to offer a free 30-minute call to talk through some of this in your church. We have people on our team here at Chemistry Staffing that can help you build a healthier, more connected church culture. We do that all the time. We love to do that and we'd love to work with your church if that's do that all the time. We love to do that and we'd love to work with your church if that's something that might be of value to you.
Speaker 1:If you're just like Todd, I don't know where to even start, let's start with a phone call, let's start with a Zoom call and just see if there's any way that we can help. I'd love to hear your story regardless. Okay, so you can reach out to me anytime. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom If you've got a comment, leave a comment here as well, and we will be here again tomorrow right here on the podcast. Totally different subject tomorrow. So come back and we will talk you.
