Church Refugees: Sociologists reveal why people are DONE with church but not their faith, by Josh Packard Ph.D, Ashleigh Hope
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Church Refugees: Sociologists reveal why people are DONE with church but not their faith, by Josh Packard Ph.D, Ashleigh Hope
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As millions of church members fall into inactivity each year, they've probably also started skipping church on Sunday. We need answers—not statistics. We need to understand and hear from people who are leaving church so we can find a way to turn around the trend. This book uses in-depth sociological research to get to the heart of the issue. The data is collected from interviews with real people about why they left and who they really are. These aren’t the “nones” who have no religious affiliation. They’re the “dones” who’ve been faithfully serving in local churches for years. This is their story.
Church Refugees: Sociologists reveal why people are DONE with church but not their faith, by Josh Packard Ph.D, Ashleigh Hope- Amazon Sales Rank: #32875 in Books
- Published on: 2015-06-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .63" w x 6.00" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 143 pages
About the Author Josh Packard is a professor of sociology at the University of Northern Colorado and the well-published author of numerous academic articles, reviews, and the book, The Emerging Church. He's also an active church member and has a deep desire to understand the widespread phenomenon of church decline. He can be found at joshpackard.com.Ashleigh Hope is the process of gaining her Ph.D. in Sociology at Vanderbilt University where she researches topics in the areas of religion, community, and health. She is currently a member of a church in Nashville, and is interested in the various religious and life perspectives that exist in- and outside of the modern congregation.
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79 of 80 people found the following review helpful. A New Exodus Out of the American Church By Jeff Cook Few books have disturbed me as much as Josh Packard’s Church Refugees.Many of us have become familiar with the “Nones” (those who select “none” when asked their religious afflation) and their increase over the past 20 years. Packard describes a different, trending phenomenon: “The Dones”, those who have decided “their spiritual lives are better off lived outside organized religion.”Packard unveils what many of us in Churchworld have been experiencing as a trickle for years: the most committed church attenders—those who have given most, prayed longest, served for years, and have been in the most important meetings—are the ones leaving our churches. After a year of qualitative research, conducting a hundred interviews, Packard concludes that the Dones are not leaving because they hate God or Christ’s priorities; the Dones uniformly report that they are leaving church to save their faith.Packard argues the church in America is not the European model, and its death will not be due to stagnation. America is an innovative society, but if the American church cannot keep “its most committed, devoted, and energetic followers, then its destined to become a greatly diminished social force.” This is no small observation. Where analyzing the Nones is like looking at a sever burn that on the surface looks bad but over time may heal, the Dones are like a diagnosis of cancer. Some of the people most essential for the American church’s lasting health are leaving and the reasons are documented and would require major systemic change.Note, the Dones are not the free-riders. They are the folks who showed up every week and gave regularly, and they are not leaving because of the apparent dominance of conservative theology or well-publicized sex scandals. Rather, Packard summarizes, “the story of the dechurched is a story of modern religious organizations and institutions stifling people’s ability to engage with each other and their community.”So why are the Dones leaving? Packard argues,• The Dones say they left because of the judgmental posture of church people individually and collectively which assaulted the communal experience they longed for.• The Dones say they left because they are tired of trying to serve Jesus through the bureaucratic methods of church organizations which stifled progress and often gave little attention to what they cared for most. Many wished to build the Kingdom but were only offered opportunities to build someone’s church empire.• The Dones say they left because they want to answer questions about God through dialogue and struggle, not though prepackaged lectures and the predetermined positions of their community.• And the Dones say they left because their church only understood “morality” in terms of substance abuse and sexual activity with a common disregard to systemic issues of equality, poverty and unjust economics.Note, Packard is not a progressive commentator. Packard is a sociologist presenting data from interviews. He is not advancing his own gripes about church life (he presently attends and is active in a church). Instead, his book outlines what those who have already left say about why they left and why they are not likely to return.As a practitioner, this is the most challenging book I’ve read in some time and churches like mine—what may be termed emerging churches—are not immune. Normally when reading books on the failures of Churchword, I am part of the critics circle, but not here. Packard puts his finger on spots my church and most of those I know deeply struggle.
37 of 38 people found the following review helpful. "Done" but not Finished. By David Lewis Church Refugees is the “Lookout on the Bridge” of life in the American Church. Dr. Josh Packard and Ashleigh Hope have undertaken a sociological study of “The Dones.” That unique group of people who have been deeply engaged in the church, who have given themselves to serve and share, but now have left the local church and are not looking to return. They have given their time, energy, resources, wisdom and heart to the work of the church, for years, many of them for a lifetime, but now they are “done.”After interviews with over 200 “Dones,” Packard and Hope conclude that most of them don’t want to leave the church. They don’t walk away impulsively or without great deal of thought and struggle. And there are many things they love about the church but a number of things cause them to flee, for (in their language) their own spiritual health and wellbeing. Most notable among these two things is 1) the conclusion that most of the time, energy, resources and efforts of the church go into sustaining the organization that is the church; 2) the structure of most local congregations is such that they allow for no real individual creativity, passion and personal growth in identifying and deploying the gifts which God has given them.Most Dones, after many years of trying to improve and correct those structural challenges finally give up and are “done” with church. But they are not done with Jesus. They are not done with service. They are not done with the community they love and cherish. They simply find other ways to experience and express those things.Packard and Hope begin to explore ways to approach and engage the “Dones.” More importantly, they give those in church leadership an insight into the challenges faced by those who lead local congregations in engaging and retaining this very important group of church members.Church Refugees is well worth the read for anyone who cares about the American Church, is frustrated with its decline and is eager to explore what the church might look like in the decades ahead.
36 of 37 people found the following review helpful. Addressing Leadership Loss is Within Congregations' Reach. By John Hawthorne This book is a sociological report on The Dones: people who have been active in church life but have removed themselves from the institutional church. Drawing on about 100 interviews with people who were even in staff positions and no longer active in church, there are some important patterns that emerge.They placed a high value on community, on mission, and on authenticity. But over time, it seemed that the institutional church made these lofty goals difficult if not impossible to achieve. Those who left church were not likely to do so because of theological differences but because they weren’t allowed a safe place to discuss differences. This is an important distinction. It’s not that they didn’t believe Christian doctrine but wanted to explore its ramifications rather than being preached at.This circles back to issues of authentic community. When this is missing, when people can’t find expression for their missional passions, when church leadership engages in oversimplification or hypocrisy, the costs of remaining become far too great. In reading the book, I was struck with the notion that the denial of authenticity may have exponential cost structures — each infraction magnifies the ones that have gone before. Every squelching of community creates a deeper longing for that one community that meant so much.I want to underscore that the respondents in Church Refugees bear absolutely no resemblance to the characterizations so easily made by bloggers (not me) about people who want an easy faith and simply drift away because postmodernity is easier. These folks struggled. They had a vision of what the church could and should be and worked hard to make that happen.In the final instance, they simply determined that the escalating costs were too great to bear.One of my takeaways from the book is to ponder how many “near Refugees” exist in local congregations. How many people in the congregation are “one more thing” from making the decision to disinvest? For all of the bloggers’ suppositions about “casual Christians”, the resources for strengthening the local congregation, and therefore the impact of religion on society, may be right under our noses.Research like Josh and Aimee have done is the next frontier of understanding the sociology of religion. As we get a better handle on the beliefs and behaviors of real people in real conversations, we’ll have a more robust sense of how faith works in this postmodern, complex, society. It’s quite likely that such research, rather than simply giving interpretations to shifting demographic patterns, will allow us to grasp the resilience of God’s work in a changing society.
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