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Philip and the Ethiopian Unic Part 1, Philip and the Ethiopian Unic Part 2, the road to Damascus and Ananias sent to Saul.

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Welcome back to Issues, et cetera. I'm Todd Wilkin, joining us to talk about a new Gallup poll on declining church attendance, Dr. Mark Wood.

He's Director of Witness and Outreach Ministry and the Revitalization Initiative for the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod.

He's author of the book's Connected to Christ, Witnessing and Everyday Life, and Meaningful Outreach and Essential Guide to four churches. Dr. Wood, welcome back.

Well, it's great to be back with you.

Why is church attendance declining?

That's a really simple question with a complicated answer. There's a number of factors that really apply to why we see declining church attendance.

One of them is generational. As we age in generations past, we find that the younger generations, particularly the millennials, are simply not church-going people.

Upwards of 37% of millennials have no religious affiliation.

So there's also the cultural dynamic, especially among the younger generation of not belonging.

They don't see value in belonging to organizations. It's that radical individualism that's defined our culture.

And then, of course, there's the pandemic that's had its impact in terms of people leaving the church and not coming back.

There's just change in our overall culture, where religions no longer important to people. It seems pretty startling responses to surveys.

How important is religion to you? It just simply isn't on people's mind. They're living in the moment for the moment.

They're not thinking about eternal things or even greater things than what can I do right now?

How did the current numbers compare to the pre-pandemic figures on church attendance?

What's interesting, this latest Gallup poll shows that we buy in large of recovered from the pandemic slip.

There was a rather dramatic drop in in-person worship during the pandemic for a variety of reasons.

Some being that churches did actually close their doors in compliance with government directives, others that people voluntarily stayed away from public gatherings out of fear for their own health.

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