Only 41 percent of Americans attend church services on a typical weekend. Each new generation becomes increasingly unchurched.

Slightly more than half of the builder generation (born before 1946) attends church in a typical weekend. But only 41 percent of the boomers (born 1946 to 1964) and 34 percent of the busters (born 1965 to 1976) attend church on a given weekend.

Our recent research on the younger generation, the bridgers (born 1977 to 1994), indicates that only 4 percent of the teenagers understand the gospel and have accepted Christ, even if they attend church. Of the entire bridger generation, less than 30 percent attend church.

America is clearly becoming less Christian, less evangelized and less churched. Yet too many of those in our churches seem oblivious to this reality. The primary concern for some is status quo for comfort's sake.

Nevertheless, religion and religious values remain vital to people. More than 80 percent of American adults said that "religious faith is very important in their lives." Even groups that are often perceived to be less overtly religious affirmed the preceding statement, including residents of the Northeast (77 percent), single adults (79 percent), baby busters (81 percent), and liberals (74 percent).

While the vast majority of Americans say religion is important in their lives, church attendance and church affiliation have shown no improvement. The percentage of adults attending church on a given weekend in 1999 was the same in 1986.

Despite a plethora of resources to help reach those who do not attend church, the population of the unchurched in America continues to increase.

One Christian researcher noted, "At the same time that in America a multitude of new churches are being launched, and the mass media continue to report on the impact of megachurches, the number of unchurched adults is also on the rise."

The majority of our church leaders have a desire to reach the unchurched. They understand the priority of the Great Commission and seek to be faithful to evangelism. But how do we reach out to this large community of people? What are the best strategies for reaching them?

Much research has been done on the unchurched in the past, and I do not mean to diminish the value of those contributions. My concern, however, is that we need to focus some of our questions and research on a group that has been largely ignored -- the formerly unchurched.

Most research in recent years has asked questions of those not attending church, that is, the unchurched. A possible problem with this approach is that as many as 80 to 90 percent of this group may never attend church. In other words, we could be developing strategies to reach a sector of the population that despite our best efforts, will never attend church.

Why not ask the questions of those who did transition from unchurched to churched? Why not ask what influenced them to come to church and perhaps to become Christians? Since they were the receptive and responsive people, perhaps the principles we learn from reaching the formerly unchurched can be applied to reaching the presently unchurched.

We embarked on just such a study. We researched more than 350 formerly unchurched people to discover what factors led them to become active in the local church.

The formerly unchurched are people who have recently (typically within the last two years) become active in a church. For all or a large portion of their lives they were not in church.

Some of the formerly unchurched considered themselves Christians even when they did not attend church. Most were not Christians before they found a church home.

The people we studied came from all regions of the United States and represented seven major denominations.

We gained many surprising insights from this group of people. From the importance of the pastor and his preaching to the personal witness of a church member, the results of this exciting study will challenge you and encourage you.

Join us in the following weeks as we shatter some widely held myths about the unchurched and examine the main factors in reaching them.