Why Women Are Leaving the Church (And What We’re Missing)

Women are leaving the church. I think we're afraid that if we are honest, that we will be met with judgment and we don't wanna live with shame. (upbeat music) - Hello there, you're listening to the Girl Talk podcast. My name is Carol. - I'm Kelly. - I'm Tricia. - So glad you've joined us today. You read a statistic the other day that women are leaving the church. Women, that be us, are leaving the church. - Really? I haven't heard about this. - Why do you think it's behind that? - Yeah, well, so I've also heard this at a conference. It may probably is not the same statistic you were at. You heard, but I heard that now that the young women, especially are the ones getting the most disenfranchised with the church, and the young men praise the Lord for this. The young men are coming to church and droves, and the young women are leaving the church and droves. - Yes. - In the terrible. - Yes, yeah. - That's the same thing I've heard. - Yeah, okay. - I've done a study done by Barna. And Barna's like the smartest people on the planet. They do the deepest research. And so if they say it, it's true. - Yeah. - So it just means that it's happening. It actually is happening. - So what do you think is behind women getting disenfranchised with the church and leaving the church? - I have so many opinions on this. - I know. - That's why I ask you the question. So I'm gonna start first with what I think the real core of the issue is, and I think the real core of the issue is a lack of authentic community in churches that we put on our little fancy dresses or our washed faces. And we make sure our kids look nice and perfect. And I'm a good Christian and I'm not gonna have any struggles. And I'm not gonna admit that to anybody. And so we're having this lack of community and real authentic community in churches because we're not bringing our real selves to church. And we are not engaging in our churches in ways other than the one hour on Sunday mornings. We have a tendency to fly in, do the worshiping, fly back out, talk to two people, and that's it. And then we work on the nursery on the third Sunday. - Right. And so we're disengaged totally from all the things. And so we're not finding authentic community because we're not seeking for authentic community and we're not bringing our real selves. - Do you think there is a, there's also a, I don't know what to call it exactly, but women do serve a lot in the church. I'm not saying guys don't, so don't send me emails saying that. I said that 'cause I did not. But women serve a lot. - Yes. - I think that's been the kind of comfort zone for us 'cause we're nurturers and there's a place we can serve and make a difference. And do you think people get burned out on that? - Sure, I think we have a lot of us have the spiritual gift of helps. - Yeah. - And so we're the ones making the cast-rolled dishes and we're showing up to clean the parking lot and we're rocking the babies in the nursery. - And yeah, you get really burned out. I went through a season of that for sure. I'm in the season right now where I'm rolling up to church, worshiping for an hour, speaking to two people and walking back out the door. And I'm not finding any community, but it's my own fault. - Yeah. - And I'm not putting myself out there and a lot of that's because I got so burned out. - It's just that. - Yeah. - And so, you know, so burned out. - Yes. - And a lot of the serving that I did that now I'm just, you know, there to worship and not there to build community with people. So yeah. - What do you think is the point of going to church and not bringing your real self? - Like, I don't understand. I think for much of the Bible belt where we are, it is a cultural thing that you, that the good families in your community go to church. And so I think we kind of start from that place of like we want to be known as a good family. We want to be known as a good family. - Be seen. - Yeah, we want to be seen as a good family and a family that does the right thing. I think that's a lot of, I think a ton of it is just the cultural area that we grew up in. Now, I mean, for me, that was like an unwritten rule or whatever, that's what you did on Sunday mornings. And so I think that's part of it. I think we're afraid that if we are honest, that we will be met with judgment and we don't want to live with shame. And I think we don't want anybody else to know how deep our wounds go. So I think there's a, it's a couple different answers, but I think those are some of the reasons that I feel like that. - Yeah. - I wrote down some of the same things in kind of different words as you were saying, but I think some of us two are holding it together. - Yeah. - And that I know that if I crack open, I'm gonna bust open. - Yeah. - And so, are you emotionally vomit on people? Do I, can I trust you if I vomit all over you? Emotionally vomit on you? Can I trust you to hold that in a sacred way? And can I trust you to be able to carry it? - That's right. - Like I'm getting ready to give you all my stuff, all my junk. Can you, are your shoulders big enough to handle it? - Yeah, that's good. - Yeah, so I think part of it is just, is that, if I open, I'm gonna crack open. And I don't have to, we don't have time for that. Like I don't have time to sit here in church and like, they're gonna kick us out at some point in time. We're gonna have to like take this off site. We're gonna have to go more. - There's a reason you ask that question. So what are you thinking? - Well, I feel like when I go into church, I just go and I cry almost every week. Every week I go and I cry only because, I just feel my need for God so profoundly. And I've sometimes wondered, what do people think about me? Like do they think I'm being showy or something like that? But I just cry, I just cry and he offers every week, our pastor offers the opportunity to come up to the altar. And I'm like, I go every week. I'm like, excuse me, pardon, pardon, even if I'm like in the middle of the row. Yeah, I go every week because I'm just so, I just know how much I need him and church is such a great, great reset for me. And so I'm trying to understand what it would be like to be, to not do that, like to be fearful, but I guess I just, I need God more than I care about what people think about me in that moment. - That's good. - But maybe I'm not providing a safe place for other people, it's just making me wonder whether me sitting in church, am I open to other people who are in need, or am I promoting, am I just so self-focused that I'm not paying attention to the people that are sitting around me that need an authentic community or need somebody to care about them? I don't know, I'm just, I'm curious about this. You surprised me. I did not know women were leaving the church. I never heard that. And so I'm trying to understand it. - Yeah. - So that's why I was asking. - Yeah, and I'm not sure that just to kind of unpack a little bit about what you said. I'm not sure that Sunday morning worship service is the place where we can build that authentic community. - Yeah, yeah. - Okay. - There's so much happening in a worship service. - That's right. - That does not about building community with the person sitting next to you on the pew. I mean, there's certainly, you know, we're gonna shake hands and say hello, but that's not how you build authentic community. You're not there for that purpose. - Yeah. - On a Sunday morning. I think churches aren't doing as good a job as we could. Other women, we're not building enough, and it's on us. It's on the church staff to do this. It's on us, but we as women are not building that stuff to happen outside of the 11 o'clock Sunday morning worship service to build that community. You know, the hosting people over to our house for dinner or going for walks or getting, creating that kind of community. The women's Bible studies are not really doing it. I don't think as much anymore. They're not doing it for me, as much anymore. And that's really the only perspective, I guess I could really have. But the data does show that women are leaving. And so there's gotta be reasons. - Yeah. - Because it is true. - Do you think one of the reasons two things, do you think that we are busier than ever so that leaves zero amount of time for building relationships? - I think that's part of it for sure. - And are we so connected, we're disconnected? What do I mean by that? Is it are we so connected through social media or other things that we feel like we're connected? But it's actually a false connection. It's not really building community. It's building a platform. - Yeah. - Yes. - Yes. - Especially with the phones in our hands. I just picture myself, for instance. And maybe I'm at the ball fields with my son and watching him play sports on the field. And instead of connecting to the woman who is sitting next to me on the bleacher, I'm scrolling Facebook on my phone waiting for practice to be over. - Yeah. - Instead of actually connecting with the woman who I'm gonna see at every single practice. because she's gonna to come to every single practice, or she's going to come to every single game. And so I'm going to see her all the time, but instead my default is just to go into that phone and or even scroll or play video game in your kid play. I found myself do that like my kids playing and I'm going, Oh, look, somebody commented on my post. That's wrong thinking. Yeah. Yeah. You're to your point. Yeah. And we could just build so much community if we just put the phones down and look the people that are sitting next to us in the eyeballs, but they we may not get the same dopamine hit that we get whenever we look at social media to say, I mean, I don't want to paint, there are a lot of great things happening on social media. But for some of us, it becomes a just, I've taken it off my phone. I cannot have it because it's not good for me. I just, I know, I know that about myself. And so, but, but it doesn't have to be social media. It can be a news site. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Right. Yes. For sure. We have game. Yeah. It's a game. Yeah. Nothingness. I was. Yes. Going through this recently. And I chose to give up something for a period of time that I felt like was a problem. And about a weekend, the Lord was like that, that thing is not your problem. Your problem is your allegiance. What does that mean? Like your allegiance to that thing. It said, your allegiance to me? Yes. Putting it first. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Your, your problem is not your appetite. Mm-hmm. Like that is your problem. So, quit trying to solve it with that thing because I had just filled my, that, my appetite on something different. I just gone to something else. Yeah. And so. Yes. I think we can look two things, even good things like the accomplishments of our kids. Or our kids, in general, can become that thing that we spend more time with, we do, all the things for them, you know, we worship, we worship them, yes. Absolutely. It is. Mm-hmm. I have been thinking about this conversation in my head just now and I'm like, maybe, maybe part of the problem is that we're just so tired. That's why we don't engage. We don't engage sometimes at church. We don't engage with the person sitting beside us. We don't engage is because we're spinning our wheels on so many other things, kind of what you just said, like worshipping other things. And I, for me, sometimes I just feel weary and think, I think, well, I'm going to skip church because I'm just tired. And I, I think I just need to rest or I'm not going to engage with that person because I just don't have any emotional room to add somebody else's thing because I feel like I'm carrying so many other things. Mm-hmm. It's an awful thing to admit to, but I'm just trying to be honest because I'm trying to understand, sure, we as women, me, personally, trying to do this thing and that thing and this thing and that thing, it's like I, sometimes I feel like I don't have, don't have any more room. Mm-hmm. And that's not good. But maybe that's part of why women are not feeling connected at church. Mm-hmm. Yep. We've taken on too many things. And I wonder if there is like zero neutral activities and what I mean by that is we think that scroll on social media or Facebook. We think that has positive impact. Right. It's going to refresh us. Or we want to numb out. You know, go home and watch Netflix and not, not talk to anybody, not interact with anybody, you know, not saying any of those things in themselves are bad. But we're looking for a numb out solution for something that could be a bigger problem. So we look for those lesser things that never really satisfy us why we just replace it with something else. Mm-hmm. I don't know, maybe. So why would that cause women to leave the church? Is it just because they feel like they don't have authentic relationships? Well, they don't feel like they're getting what they need. I guess in a church experience. Yeah. And yes. Yes. Yes, and I think they're such, it's easy for us to get rich biblical content. Oh, yeah. I can hear a really good sermon every minute of every single day by good preachers that are preaching the word. The way it's supposed to be preached. I mean, I can go find it in the drop of a hat. There's a lot of build up from that. There's such good Bible preachers. And so if you're not going for that purpose, you know, if you can get that in other places and you're not getting the other things, you're not getting the authentic community, you're not getting the accountability, you're not getting the discipleship. You know, that's a lot of oftentimes what our churches are missing is that discipleship other than just the discipleship from the pastor preaching the sermon on Sunday morning because discipleship's got to go a lot further than just what the pastor says from the platform. If I'm not getting that discipleship, I'm not getting that authentic community. Why do I want to be there? Yeah. I can sing songs, worship him at my house. Yeah. I can get good Bible preaching anywhere else on my phone. I don't need all that. I don't need all that from the church. So where do you think she's getting that? I don't know. She's probably not getting it. Could that be why there's more anxiety? There's more depression, all the mental health things. Yeah. Yes. Yes. And I think, yeah. I think she's probably not getting it because she's, but she's saying, I don't, I can't, I don't, those people, people are messy and I don't need to, I don't need the people. I can go get this in any other way. It's like sometimes men will say, I can worship the Lord on the golf course. You know, I don't need to go to church on time in the mornings. I can get that from the golf course or from the understand us as women are no different. We can say, well, I can get that from someplace else. That doesn't mean we're actually going to go get that from someplace else, but you can, but I can. So I'm going to say, I am, I'm going to go get it someplace else, but I'm not actually, I'm not actually going to do it. So yeah, I think there's a piece of, a piece of that. I can remember when my parents were still living, I looked at their friend group and I was thinking to myself that those kinds of friendships, because they had raised kids together, they had grown as a family together and they'd grown old together and there's so few people that do that anymore. There's still a lot of my mom and dad's friends that were checking in every once in a while and see how I'm doing. I think that speaks to our generation of, oh, we don't need that and we don't grow up in the same place. We don't do the same job. We're on the go, on the go, all the time. We don't take the time to develop those friendships and walk through hard seasons with one another and that makes me sad for us, you know. They're missing out. Yeah, absolutely. We are. Wow, that's so powerful. I haven't ever thought about that, but I'm sure you're right. Our culture is like, get what you need, get it as quickly as you can and then move on. But when you journey with people, when you live lives with people, it is messy and sometimes it's frustrating and sometimes it's wonderful, but it's a journey that you commit to be on together and if we don't feel like we have to do that, then people check out. Yeah. So what is our part in helping women go back to church? Because even this podcast is a community, right, you can get good conversation here. In fact, we hear a lot of people say that, but we want you to take this beyond just the three of us 100% because if you just use this as your connect time, you're still not connecting. Right. You may connect with a podcast, but a podcast is not going to be there at three o'clock in the morning when you need somebody to pray for your kid, right? Yeah. And I think everybody's church is set up in a different way. Sure. Every church offers different kinds of opportunities for engagement. But I would say the first thing that you could do is actually find some place to engage. For me, I know at the old church I used to go to, the way I ended up finding community was the first step I took was to join the choir. And not all churches have choirs anymore. But maybe there's something that's similar to that. Maybe it's showing up to the workday on a Saturday where they're going to plant flowers. Or maybe it's just showing up to something and being present and looking at other people in the eyeballs, putting down your phone, being present, starting to build that community again. But I think also for us, we as women that are in the church have to create that intentional space in those intentional places where the other women are encouraged to come. And then we look them in the eyeballs and it has to be a safe place. I'll say that. Yes. Yeah. And I was thinking, our expectations are important to manage. If we think that going back to church is going to be, I don't know, not messy. We got to, we got to check that expectation at the door because relationships are messy. But if what we need, what we crave is community that comes through relationships and they're highs and lows to that. So I know for me personally, like there's a couple of situations I'm thinking about in my head as I'm talking about this, it's like, okay, you just, just expect the people are going to bug you sometimes and you're going to bug people sometimes. But that's part of the joy of relationship is knowing that we're all human and we all, you know, give people a little bit of grace, give yourself a little bit of grace and understand that, just understanding that that's what relationships are, they can be messy. Yeah. And going to church is hard. You know, if you have a place you can belong, you know, just at least a seat if you are attending church and you can save a seat for somebody next to you who can come and join you. Oh, that makes you feel so good when you walk in and go, okay, I have a place to belong. I have a place to go. Yeah. I'm, I'm needed here. I'm wanted here. I belong here. One of the hardest things is walking into a church when you know no one or there's no empty seat for you or there's no smiling face to look at you. You don't feel like you belong. And so if we as the people who were in the church can make it a place where people feel like they belong. There was a great quote. I'm not going to remember it. But I talked about it on the midday show at some point weeks ago, but it was like, you may never know the violent, difficult situation that this person went through before they landed in the pew next to you, just to be able to have that compassion. Yeah. It can be easy to forget if you've been going to church for a while. How hard it is to walk into a church for the first time or walk into the church for the first time in a long time. And to, to level this, we always think about the people because I'm often one of them who comes in late after the lights are down and has to go, excuse me, and get in front of you before they sit at the empty seat to be sure to go, hey, I'm glad you're here. Yeah, come on in. No problem. You know, instead of like, oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, she's late again. Don't step on my coffee. Don't you know that Jesus just looks, looks down and goes, they're missing the whole point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So don't miss the whole point. If you don't have a church home where they're teaching the Bible every week, find one because there may be somebody in that church who needs to hear your story, who needs to hear how God has worked in your life. And you could be a big blessing to them. And I didn't just give us our stuff just for us. We are meant to serve, to serve the body of Christ. So find out what your gift is and look for a place to serve it. If you already go to a church this Sunday, look around, say a prayer. Lord, help me to see the people who need to be seen today. And then connect with somebody. You may not remember their name. They not may not remember yours, but they are going to remember how they felt when you said hello. And that is important. We need to love like Jesus. If you got thoughts or a way that we could pray for you, you're welcome to email us at [email protected]. You can also get in touch on the Facebook pages. And hey, before you get away from us, could you do us a favor? Could you like and subscribe to this podcast that helps the algorithms? I know. Aren't you impressed? I know that word helps the algorithm so that our podcast will come up for more people not so that we can get more people listen, but so that more people can come to know Jesus. That's why we do this. So if you do that for us, we sure would appreciate it and we'll save you a seat next time we gather around these microphones for the next girl talk podcast.