The Welcome to the Good Faith Podcast, podcast. I'm your host Curtis Chang, and the Good Faith Podcast is a production of

Redeeming Babel. And the Good Faith Podcast is where friends who follow Jesus

help each other make sense of the world. And one of the things that is happening in the world that's been happening for decades now is what is being called

the Great D. Churching. If you've been a listener to this podcast, we did an

interview with the author, Michael Graham, along with David French,

where we had to come to grips with the fact that we are in the midst of the largest and fastest religious shift in US history with some 40 million

Americans, that's one in six Americans, having stopped going to church in the past 30 years.

So that's the great de-churching.

And in that podcast, we talked a lot about what's happening

for adults and how much just adult lifestyles

and consumer sort of mentality has been changing in substantial ways

Americans attitudes towards church along with some dynamics like politicization, abuse and so forth so all of it is is happening for

adults it's also happening for youth and that's what we're talking about today is the great

de-churching of youth and I have the privilege of who I think is one of the pre-eminent experts on this subject, Kara Powell.

Kara, welcome to the Good Faith, welcome back to the good faith

podcast. Yeah, thanks Curtis. It's wonderful to be with you and your

listeners again. Cara is the chief of leadership formation at Fuller

seminary, institution I'm associated with, also the executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute and Professor of Youth and Family Ministry.

So, Kara, let's just get right into it. What is the numbers telling you about the great de-churching

of American youth?

Yeah, I'm glad you asked Curtis.

And generally, I'm an optimist.

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