Defining the Unchurched

In church circles it is easy to talk about "those" people.  You know who I am talking about - the unchurched, irreligious, or the disenfranchised.  It's as though there is an understood common meaning when talking about this group.  However, without actually taking the time to define what that group looks like in your given community- you might actually be speaking a different language than the culture around you.  Consider sitting your team down and taking some time to define the culture of the unchurched/irreligious of your community.

Last week I did that with our team and this is what we came up with:

• Spiritual or open to spiritual things
• Skeptical about church and religious organizations
• Social media plays a huge part of their social connections
• Not a lot of deep relationships
• Many had some bad religious experiences in their past
• View church as irrelevant, boring, not for me, liturgical, old
• Continuous partial attention
• Options open
• Moralistic therapeutic deist
• Entertainment-driven
• Happiness-oriented
• Relativistic
• Apathetic or on the other extreme - wanting to do "good" - cause oriented
• Protective of time (selfish, self-interested)
• Love transparency while hating hypocrisy
• Acceptance = not judgmental - can't tell me I'm wrong
• Intelligent, educated, informed
• Well connected and networked due to technology- even on a surface level
• Identity shaped by pop culture, not so much by real relationships
• Demand Instant gratification
• Short attention spans
• Pragmatic
• Simplistic
• Demand high quality due to high expectations

What are you seeing?  What defines the unchurch segment of your culture?