Hey, it’s Brady,

Two of the largest religion research organizations independently asked people why they left the church.

The number one answer - by a massive margin - is that they simply stopped believing. 67% in PRRI's data. 51% in Pew's.

Not the music. Not the programs. Not politics. They stopped believing in the core claims of the faith.

And here's what's uncomfortable about that: you cannot program your way out of someone who no longer believes.

Now, what can we do about this?

Well, it turns out, the experience a child has in your church between the ages of 5 and 17 is the single strongest predictor of whether they'll identify with faith as adults.

Not the quality of your Sunday morning production. Not your small group curriculum. What happened in their childhood.

If a child's experience of church is negative - judgmental, confusing, boring, hypocritical, harmful - the data says there's roughly a 70% chance they will not identify with any religion as an adult. If it's positive, there's an 84% chance they'll stay.

Invest in your students. Invest in your kid's ministry.

Today, we’re unpacking a different approach to getting people into small groups - backed by national data so you can see where your church stands. We’ll also walk through a simple exercise to identify who isn’t joining and why.

Get our exercise here.

Thanks as always for your time, attention, and trust. Talk to you next Thursday. - Brady Shearer