‘Church Tomorrow? What the Nones and Dones Teach Us About the Future of Faith’

Confessions of a Former None

I believe the road to the future church winds through terrain best known by nonreligious younger Americans. I admit I have a personal stake in such listening. As I write these words, I have spent exactly half of my life as a None and half as a Christian.

Though Christianity was always close by, I didn’t get baptized and join a church until I was twenty-six and a half. Avoiding Christianity wasn’t easy, given that I spent much of my childhood in Kentucky in or near a Baptist church; majored in religion at Wake Forest University, a former Southern Baptist school in North Carolina; earned a Master of Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School; and even worked as a religion reporter for a newspaper in East Tennessee.

Having just completed nearly a decade serving in the Episcopal denominational headquarters, I am aware that I’ve now ventured as far inside as an insider can go. Still . . . a part of me will always resonate with the Nones, Dones, unchurched, spiritual but not religious — all the folks who yearn for the divine yet are rightly suspicious of institutions that talk about God and love but might just want bottoms in pews. I was once one of the anonymous, nonreligious data points I’m now studying. I feel a passion and a responsibility to find out how they are connecting to the sacred . . . if at all. What communities are they dreaming of . . . if at all? And having consciously opted out of traditional religion, what would they say back to us?

I will also confess from the outset that when my conversation partners’ commentary cut a little too close, I was tempted to shift the burden back on them. If these Nones and Dones have ideas about the church’s future, why don’t they come (back) to church? If they don’t care enough to put skin in the game, why should we listen to them? Over the course of this journey, I have come to respect the logical reasons and deep traumas that prevent some people from drawing any closer to Christian community. I have seen for myself that someone doesn’t have to be Christian to share wisdom or a story that blesses us. Finally, I’ve been reminded of a core insight from the ministry of radical welcome: If your institution has the power, you have the privilege and the opportunity to listen to people on the margins, to dream together, and to create a space where The Other can flourish. Church folk can’t expect nonreligious neighbors to trust the very institution that has wounded and alienated so many of them, even if our particular churches weren’t the “culprit.” Neither can we lay out contract terms: If we make these changes, then they will come. Listening and embracing transformation isn’t transactional. Our deep hope is to trust the Spirit, open hearts and doors, and incarnate God’s dream for God’s church. Who joins? That part is up to God.

So come with me now, whether you are a church leader or member, lay person or clergy, deacon or bishop, lifer or a newcomer, theological educator or seminarian, nonprofit partner of churches or just someone curious about faith. Come, whether you live in a town, city, rural area, or suburb. Come, if yours is a large resource church or a small or mid-size congregation. Come if you’re serious about evangelism, outreach, discipleship, formation, youth, young adults, seniors, and everybody in between. Come if you’re lively and come if you’re just plain tired. Whoever you are and however you come, God bless you for taking this next step deeper into the valley of the dry bones. May God soothe our shared disappointment and answer our deep longing. And may all the exploration and examination that follows ultimately point the way toward new life, new hope, new relationships, and new opportunities to embody the gospel of Jesus Christ in a nation that needs his loving way now more than ever.

Come, too, if you’re a None or Done who’s curious about church, faith, and the future. Maybe you are willing to share wisdom with us, maybe you hope to borrow some of ours for your journey, and maybe you’re yearning to join and grow a life of Spirit by our side. Rest assured, I know we can’t approach you as customers to be wooed or a problem to be solved. We can’t assume you will just come back when you have kids — many of you were never churched to begin with. The goal is not to convert or convince you, but to walk with you for a while and learn how God is showing up in your life outside the church walls. And yes, I hope we can wonder together what it would look like to follow Jesus’s lead and form life-changing communities marked by love for God, our communities, and our world.

Will there be a church tomorrow? I know there will be, but I can’t tell you the shape of it, the smell, sound or look of it. We will have to listen closely to the God who asked Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?,” the same God who then pledged, “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.” We will have to re-root in God’s abiding love and welcome wonder and curiosity, admit what we don’t know, seek unlikely friends and companions on the road, and remain faithful in the valley. In other words, we will have to follow in the way of Jesus.