In A Divided America, Churches Find A Way To Move Forward
From a big-picture perspective, the outlook for many American Christian congregations can seem foreboding.
Two decades ago, approximately 42% of Americans attended worship services on a weekly or near-weekly basis. Today, that figure hovers closer to 30%, according to Gallup polling. While some megachurches continue to grow, other smaller congregations are struggling to stay open — many with an average membership of just 65 and an aging population.
But amid the stories of congregations closing and buildings being repurposed, there is a counternarrative. It’s a story that doesn’t get told as often — the story of churches that survive crises and somehow rise from the ashes (in at least one case, literally).
Though what triggers a reckoning can manifest as congregational conflict, it can also reflect broader community tensions.
In the midst of the divisive presidential election in 2016 that saw Donald Trump win the White House, a vibrant, growing congregation in Phoenix lost approximately two-thirds of its membership — but ultimately found a way to rebuild by focusing on its multicultural identity and willingness to engage in difficult conversations on sensitive topics.
Four years later, another area congregation saw nearly 80% of its worshiping community flee, many to more conservative parishes, because it followed medical guidance regarding COVID restrictions.
Across the country, in New York City’s East Village, a 128-year-old church was gutted by fire, leaving only its stone facade. The shocked congregation was left without a gathering place for years to come.
Though these congregations don’t share a denominational label, size, or even culture, they do share some common traits. All are purposefully multicultural and multiethnic, reflecting in many ways the makeup of the communities around them. Their leadership teams were ready to meet the moments of crisis they faced, according to their pastors.
The clergy in charge were already seasoned, with experience navigating pastoral care and the political polarization that has become a context for much church division. Most importantly, according to these pastors, while their congregations were clear-eyed about their mission, they truly repurposed crises as opportunities to meet not only the needs of regular members but also those of outsiders seeking a community that would welcome them — as they are.
Unsplash photo
Using the Gospel to discuss modern-day issues
The sprawling metro area of Phoenix, situated in one of the fastest-growing regions in America, represents a part of the country where much — including political identity — is contested. Writers have documented how disruptive political figures like Trump have been to religious communities. But in this part of Arizona, his rise seems to have presented both a challenge of potentially divisive disagreements and an opportunity to become more clear-eyed about their purpose — and their market.
Launched in 2005 in downtown Phoenix, Roosevelt Community Church, a nondenominational, multicultural, and multiethnic congregation, grew quickly, according to the Rev. Vermon Pierre, one of the founding pastors. When Trump was elected in 2016, the diversity that had been a calling card for the congregation became a flashpoint.
“We wanted to be diverse, not to compel people in any direction, but actually to hold each other accountable,” Pierre said.
Pierre and his leadership team believed, he said, that the Gospel was a big enough tent for congregants to discuss any issue, whether it be racial injustice, poverty or politics. But many of his congregants at the time weren’t buying it. One of them (he estimates two-thirds of them left) told him on the way out that they were attracted to the church because of its diversity — and were leaving because of it.
“Basically, they liked the diversity, but didn’t want it to go below the surface,” Pierre said.
It hit him hard.
“I thought all those years of relationship would be enough,” Pierre admitted.
But in the wake of the disruption of 2016 and the ensuing pandemic — during which many fled to more homogenous environments — the church began attracting new people.
“They have a different sensibility, a desire to talk about difficult issues, and a willingness to challenge each other,” Pierre said.
He accepts, he said, that most people may not want diversity.
“It’s taxing, hard to do. But I don’t know what we’re doing if churches don’t step into that space,” said Pierre.
Congregations divided, church leaders united
For years before the controversy over pandemic restrictions led more than half the congregants to depart in protest, said lead pastor Caleb Campbell, he had been working with the team at Desert Springs Bible Church to ensure they were in agreement on issues such as socio-economic and ethnic diversity. One of the most frequent pieces of advice he offers other pastors, Campbell said, is to test out their convictions with leadership first.
Though the congregation was divided, he said, church leadership was united — allowing them to focus, as they emerged from the challenges of 2020, on the fundamentals of what made them unique in their North Phoenix environment.
“We sensed that the issues around socio-economic justice and ethnic diversity in the local church were spaces we were stepping into more frequently,” Campbell said.
When they did so, they found they were attracting new people — whom Campbell calls “theological evangelical refugees.”
“They didn’t want to be combative or politically polarized. They weren’t interested in the toxic tribalism a lot of the evangelical church has given itself over to,” he added.
By 2023, he said, they noticed hundreds of people flocking to their church. The common denominator? Campbell said it was trying to focus on Jesus and the Scriptures, without assuming that posture aligns with any political party or stance.
“A lot of our ministry now is helping people heal from a sense of betrayal,” he said.
The change in the makeup of his congregation was for the better, he argued. For years prior, said Campbell, he felt like many people in his congregation shared the same background, economic status, ethnicity and political party. The problem, he said, is that “that’s not a church. It’s a social club. What is impressive is a bunch of people who have nothing in common except Jesus being unified with each other.”
Campbell said part of the work toward diversity at Desert Springs was done by the leadership team as they participated in Bible studies and conversations about books by “trusted evangelical sources.”
Another element was encouraging church leaders not to feel captive to majority rule. In striving for diversity, they were deliberate — doing things like including a broad array of bilingual Scripture readings and integrating people who didn’t fit the majority into the leadership team.
Clergy wellness may also be key to building a congregation that can weather turmoil. In recent years, the strains on clergy mental health have been well-documented. Campbell said he has been deliberate about taking care of his own spiritual, mental, and physical health. That includes counseling, time away, strong relationships with other pastors, and being aware of what may trigger anxiety or stress from past experiences.
Photo courtesy of Trinity Mennonite Church
Creating opportunity for dialogue
In nearby Glendale, Arizona, the Rev. Meghan Good, lead pastor at Trinity Mennonite Church, said her team tries to help congregants and newcomers focus on the principles and beliefs they share, rather than overly policing boundaries.
The church, which draws a few hundred people each Sunday, has actively worked to create opportunities for dialogue across differences, practicing the “spiritual discipline of depolarization,” Good said.
They focus on what it means to pursue the center (for them, a six-part statement of faith and purpose) while engaging in dialogue around the “outer rim” questions they’re still wrestling with.
“Frankly, if people aren’t ready to sit in that space, this may not be the place for them,” Good said.
Good said the choice to change churches, which can feel disorienting, is part of a broader post-COVID trend in American Protestant Christianity.
“There’s a lot of realignment occurring, and people are asking certain kinds of questions, finding themselves alienated from their previous communities. So, people who leave churches might know what they don’t like, but they don’t always know what they’re looking for,” Good said.
At least for now, all three Phoenix-area congregations have not only survived the churn — but found a way to adapt to it.
“Part of the answer to resiliency,” Good said, “is helping the church remember that the kingdom of God has its own story unfolding. What’s happening center stage in Washington, D.C. is not necessarily the story of what the God of Galilee and Capernaum and Bethlehem is doing. God has always been interested in working in the small, out-of-the-way places.”
The Rev. Benjamin Marsh pastors First Alliance Winston-Salem in North Carolina, a Christian Missionary Alliance congregation. (Photo courtesy of First Alliance Winston-Salem)
‘Viewing politics in Scripture as not partisan’
In Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the Rev. Benjamin Marsh pastors First Alliance Winston-Salem, a Christian Missionary Alliance congregation that, though relatively small (approximately 120 people), still reflects the diversity of the surrounding area.
In addition to being about 50% White and 40% Hispanic (with 10% identifying as other), the church has a daughter congregation of Congolese refugees. Describing the church as “purple,” Marsh notes that members include both a conservative politician and a man who protested Trump rallies with a sandwich board.
While Marsh said he is politically engaged, “I try to explain that the lens through which we view politics in Scripture is not partisan. It requires us to be able to criticize any political party or politician from a higher point of view.”
Not waiting on orders from partisans “encourages people to think for themselves,” he added.
Marsh, a registered independent, said every pastor should also be one, but he draws a clear line between his political opinions (on social platforms like X) and his pastoral role.
Mutual affection can help make it easier, he suggests, to figure out where church members actually agree.
“Until we do that, until we have a witness as a church unique in the world, partisan division doesn’t really matter. We’ve lost our identity as Christians anyway,” Marsh said.
A healthy congregation seeks God’s presence, he said. But it also reclaims an idea that has been lost — that of personal hospitality, where everyone knows they are welcome.
“We can’t just do that through a program. Deprogramming, having fewer programs, is critical to the health of a church in the long run. I personally think that helped our congregation survive. We must never forget that every individual person bears the image of God,” he said.
Then Marsh returned to a theme heard consistently from pastors and church consultants: “We’re always looking outward at the people actually within a few miles of where our church is.”
Like Campbell, Marsh also makes sure he takes time for friendships outside of his congregation.
“In this world, you’ll have traumas,” he told his kids. “I just don’t want my being a pastor to be one of them.”
New York’s Middle Collegiate Church was destroyed in a 2020 fire. (Wikipedia Commons photo)
Finding unity by overcoming disaster
Sometimes the gut-punching difficulties that need to be surmounted aren’t rooted in controversy over politics or pandemics. Instead, they come in the wake of a disaster, whether natural or human-caused.
The Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, senior pastor at New York’s Middle Collegiate Church, vividly recalls the early morning message she received four years ago: Her historic congregation, housed in an 1892 neo-Gothic building, was in flames. Everything except the facade burned to the ground (eventually, the facade had to come down). The congregation, which hopes to move into its new worship space this spring, has been meeting most recently at nearby Judson Memorial Church.
But the catastrophe was not the end of the story.
As more people heard the Middle Collegiate story, they were drawn to the church. Neighbors “loved us hard,” Lewis said, putting out coffee and sandwiches, sitting Shiva at the ruins of the building. Strangers made donations on Facebook. “That is resilience, that we know as a human family, we are better together than apart.”
The congregation expects to be worshipping in the renovated program building next to the church this coming Easter Sunday. They also hope to rebuild on the site.
A new building and a thriving congregation don’t erase the grief of losing a church with more than a hundred years of sacramental and community history, she said. But time and distance allow not only the chance to understand what they have learned, but the opportunity to “look back, pick up what was there, and take it on our future journey.”
While not everyone could tolerate the loss, she said, “my personal journey has been kind of shock and awe at how much love my community has for each other and how much they have for me. I am able to do [fundraising, travel and preaching] because God is here. That is the truth. God is here.”
Asked what factors contribute to church resilience, Dr. Warren Bird, a researcher who has written more than 33 books on church leadership, growth, and organizational development, paraphrased a quote attributed to boxer Mike Tyson: “When you keep getting hit, resilience is the ability to get up again.”
What’s knocking churches and their leaders down? Fatigued clergy, for one, said Bird, who works with both clergy and leadership teams in mapping future-oriented strategies. A trusted, charismatic leader can be influential in leading a congregation through change. At the same time, many pastors are more tired than they realize when facing challenges, whether they be political divides or congregational gripes posted on social media. Today’s culture is not the happy, homogeneous world we like to imagine from the past.
While the core Gospel message hasn’t changed, Bird said “who your listener is absolutely impacts how you voice the message — and how that message is received. Resiliency has much to do with flexibility, nimbleness, and having reserves to navigate surprises and unexpected twists in the road.”
The bad news is that there is no “magic bullet” that enables churches to heal from political, cultural or physical trauma. On the other hand, there are some tried-and-true ways to cultivate resiliency, said Mark Killian, a socology professor at Whitworth University. A consultant to the university’s Resilient Church project, Killian works with congregations across the country, helping them adapt to the changing circumstances facing them and figure out how to move their mission forward.
When Killian meets with congregations anxious for a magic three-step process, he tells them there is no magic bullet to revive churches.
“Adaptation becomes so important,” he said.
Churches that want to be resilient are doing the hard work of moving away from some of the ministries that have worked in the past, toward ones that might work in the future. Though there is widespread skepticism about institutions, he says, churches — unlike many other institutions — can offer authenticity.
“Start with your mission,” Killian said. “What has God called your individual congregation to do?”
In some cases, said Campbell, that may be to embrace hospice ministry — an honorable calling.
Though the future for churches and individuals is uncertain, it’s part of the human condition to fall down as much as it is part of life to rise up again.
“We’re just part of a march, that march toward a better world,” Lewis said. “No one gets there by themselves. When we get to the promised land, a healed world together, we remember that someone else’s strength is ours.”
Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Religion News Service, National Catholic Reporter, Sojourners, Christian Century, The Washington Post and Philadelphia Inquirer.