Editor's Note: For research purposes, Dr. Thom Rainer classified unchurched people into five categories. U1 is the most receptive group to the gospel and U5 is the least receptive.

The fact that U5s are not likely ever to attend church may seem self-evident. After all, does not the description of a U5 at least imply that they do not attend church? If they are resistant or antagonistic to the gospel, why should we expect them to attend church?

I would have had the same reaction prior to this research project. But one of the amazing surprises of our research was discovering that most of the unchurched do attend church at least once or twice a year. The U5s, however, rarely if ever attend church.

This resistant group tends to have a very skeptical view of anything supernatural. They attempt to provide rational explanations for events we Christians would describe as miraculous.

For the U5s, then, Jesus may have existed as a good man who did good deeds, but he certainly was not the Son of God. And there most definitely was no resurrection. Heaven and hell do not exist as literal places. And the view called annihilationism, that we simply are no more when we die, is common among the U5s. Immortality is unthinkable to most U5s.

This anti-supernatural bias tends to affect the U5s' attitude toward the local church. Why should they attend a place that advocates beliefs that are antithetical to their own? The U5s seem to desire to be consistent with their beliefs, or lack of beliefs, in their actions.

It is the anti-supernatural rigidity of U5s' views that best explains their unwillingness to see any value in attending church. Unlike the other unchurched persons we interviewed, the U5 typically has no room for God or anything that cannot be explained rationally.

The church, therefore, is a waste of time, best left to those of simple minds and little education.

— Dr. Thom Rainer, "The Unchurched Next Door," Zondervan, 2003