How to Change Churches

Are you discontent?

Is it time to move on? America’s faithful are restless, writes Cathy Lynn Grossman in USA Today. Many are “switching from church to church, powered by a mix of dissatisfaction and yearning,” she writes. More than half – 58 percent – of those who changed their house of worship without making a residential move, told her that “their old church failed to engage their faith, or put their talents to work, or it seemed hypocritical or judgmental.” Forty-two percent of the people say they switched because another church offered more appealing doctrines and preaching or the preacher and church members' faith seemed more "authentic." More than half (54%) of switchers changed denominations as well. Only 44 percent said the denomination was an important factor in choosing a new church.

Loyalties have changed

The numbers are the same for Protestants and Catholics. "The boundaries that once kept people in one faith, one church, have become more permeable," says Mary Gautier of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University. The number of new converts to Catholicism leveled off at about 150,000 a year for the past decade, while immigration from Catholic countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa has pushed the tally of U.S. Roman Catholics to 64 million. But the church has no mechanism for tracking who washes out of the pews unless they've died, been excommunicated or publicly renounced their faith. "Catholics are very sticky. They may not go to church but they still stick to that identification," Gautier told Grossman.