After reading a bunch or articles about it, I finally buckled down and read the Pew Forum's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. It is good stuff, sobering stuff.

In very broad strokes, the most rapidly declining religious segment in the United States is mainline Christianity. The most rapidly increasing segment seems to be "unaffiliated," those that don't claim any religious affiliation. The interesting thing about it is that many of the unaffiliated, about a third of them, 5.8 percent of all adults are "religious unaffiliated," meaning that religion is somewhat or very important to them.

So what are we doing? People are leaving the mainline church. People are leaving the Christian church in general, but the mainline church in particular. And here's the thing--it doesn't seem to be because of a lack of spiritual interest!

Here is a quote from an article run by The Palm Beach Post, regarding the study:

Layla Jean Samiljan of Lake Park, who also is spiritual and grew up Presbyterian, said people are leaving churches because God no longer dwells in the house of the lord.
"They've taken the spirit out of it and you're left with the empty form of the ritual and the rules, and people have lost their real connection to spirit, to God, and then they wonder why they're not feeling anything, why they're not getting better and why they're not getting answers."
That is the perception that is out there. Granted, sometimes (often times, unfortunately) it is accurate and sometimes it isn't. But regardless, that is the perception. An answer, I believe, is to make our church a place where people can come to explore their spirituality, to find a spiritual path.