The unchurched has been defined to mean "an adult (18 or older) who has not attended a Christian church service within the past six months" excluding special services such as Easter, Christmas, weddings or funerals. The Barna Group reported that there were 75 million "unchurched people" in the United States as of 2004.
In the US the Episcopal Church (TEC) is facing a major challenge. Virtue Online reports that TEC faces inevitable collapse with 'collaboration plans afoot in many dioceses'. The report continues: "Financial challenges and membership decline are a common concern across TEC. The language is about 'collaboration'. When things get worse, it is called 'juncturing'. When the diocese eventually dies, it is called merging."
The Church of England is in a flap leading Giles Fraser to write in UnHerd in response to Justin Welby's claim in July 2012 that "We don’t preach morality, we plant churches. We don’t preach therapeutic care, we plant churches":
"The Church is abandoning its flock. The CofE's great leap forward will cull clergy and abandon parishioners.
"The latest Great Leap Forward for the CofE looks like this. Get rid of all those crumbling churches. Get rid of the clergy. Do away with all that expensive theological education. These are all 'limiting factors'. Instead, focus relentlessly on young people. Growth, Young People, Forwards. Purge the church of all those clapped-out clergy pottering about in their parishes. Forget the Eucharist, or at least, put those who administer it on some sort of zero hours contract. Sell their vicarages. This is what our new shepherds want in their prize sheep: to be young, dumb, and full of evangelistic… zeal."
The Church in Wales had its great leap forward in 2012 following a Review by the former Bishop of Oxford, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, and others. Little time was lost in the establishment of Ministry Areas (Recommendation VI) but consideration of whether the Church in Wales is best served by six dioceses with three administrative centres or whether it would be more effective to reduce to three dioceses, together with four area bishops is, as far as one can tell, in the long grass.
In a Province the size of some dioceses one has to wonder why the Church in Wales needs so many bishops. Monmouth managed without for months as is St Davids where it emerged that the current holder spent much of her time tweeting to advance her socialist agenda before being signed off on extended sick leave.
Meanwhile the new unchurched are worshipping at home.
