Thanks to our 2020 introductory study we have confirmed what has long been suspected of those Deconstructing. They are much younger than their conventional Christian peers. While the Western Christian Church is slowly getting older *** INSERT LINK TO STAT *** it seems that Deconstruction is largely something that occurs among those between the ages of 18-50. With only around 16% of those who Deconstruct falling into the 50+ category and that tailing off quickly to 3% once we hit the 65+ mark.

With Deconstruction being a term largely embraced by the white “ex-vangelical” (read – Ex-Evangelical) community it is maybe quite telling that it is in the predominantly white denominations that we see the smallest attendance by 18-29yr olds. Could this large make-up of young people explain where many of the younger people in these churches are going? It’s hard to say for sure, and many will no doubt leave their churches without identifying themselves as Deconstructing but the hypotheses certainly makes a lot of sense.

How Different Ages Expericence Church

Less than a quarter of those between 18 – 49 yrs old attend church weekly. The most frequent attenders being the under 18s & over 65s – in both groups around half attended at least once a week.

Age is often cited as a factor in deconstruction, it is well known that between the ages of 18-29 many people stop attending church.

However interestingly enough in our findings the 18-29yr old group were not the most likely group to never attend church. That prize fell to their 30-49yr old counterparts who were also the least likely to attend at least once a week. Across the full spectrum of 18-64yrs old at least a 3rd never attended church and less than a third could state they regularly attended church, the 30-49yrs olds were under a 5th.

There is a large uptick in those under 18 and over 65 who 50% & 48% (respectively) of whom for attending church at least once a week. There could be a myriad of reasons for each age bracket’s frequent church attendance but a couple of reasons that might warrant further exploration are:

1. In the case of those under 18 it is probably a reasonable assumption that this might be related to requirements of parents to attend church while still being ‘a child under our roof.’ (A common phrase heard by the author when working with teens who are deconstructing).
2. Alternately for many under 18 if not a requirement to attend church there is likely a strong set of consequences for not doings so. Many children brought up in Christian homes face a significant amount of pressure to attend and do not want to dissapoint or hurt their parents. Additionally many brought up in Christian homes have their primary friendship bubbles all within the church through things like church youth groups etc. It could be this that causes so many to wait until after 18 to leave church despite identifying as deconstructing. Indeed **** INSERT STUDY **** found that ***** % of those who left church between 18-29yrs had already decided to do so in their teenage years.
3. In the case of those over 65 it is likely they have some measure of a sunk-cost fallacy with such huge social barriers to leaving that attendance is less of a pain than leaving.

Age gaps in church attendance have sometimes been linked to higher education playing a part. This will be studied further in our next report but is a common belief and higher education has been shown to be present in those who are dechurched – (Packard, Hope 2015)

One thing is for sure, with 24% of 18-29yr old deconstructing Christians attending church at least once a week we can safely say that while many deconstructing Christians have dechurched a good quarter or so in this age bracket are still attending.

Findings on age are still being released from our study – check back soon to see more.

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