{"title":"Believing and Wanting to Belong: A Mixed-Methods Study of Dechurched Christians in Hong Kong","authors":"Kar-yan Alison Hui, Natalie Chan","doi":"10.1177/0034673X231217066","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Dechurched Christians are believers who regularly attended church but later left church and maintained their Christian faith. Reasons for dechurching provide important learnings for the wider Christian community. This is a mixed method study that began with a quantitative survey that looked into the reasons for going to and leaving church. Quantitative results found that most Christian respondents go to church “to be closer to God.” Top reasons for dechurching are disappointment in church culture and not liking the way a church handles certain matters. In the subsequent qualitative study, 17 dechurched Christians were interviewed and results found that an additional reason for leaving was feeling that churches were out of touch. Interviewees shared that their best memories from church were when they experienced life together with brothers and sisters and learnt from in-depth sermon messages. Most respondents shared that they still maintained close relationship with God, hope to go back to church, and long to experience love and belong to spiritual companionship and experience presence of God. This study illustrates the importance of staying connected with dechurched Christians, and room for faith communities and fresh expression of churches to provide spiritual home for dechurched to belong.","PeriodicalId":47205,"journal":{"name":"Review of Religious Research","volume":"22 1","pages":"476 - 492"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2023-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Review of Religious Research","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0034673X231217066","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"RELIGION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Dechurched Christians are believers who regularly attended church but later left church and maintained their Christian faith. Reasons for dechurching provide important learnings for the wider Christian community. This is a mixed method study that began with a quantitative survey that looked into the reasons for going to and leaving church. Quantitative results found that most Christian respondents go to church “to be closer to God.” Top reasons for dechurching are disappointment in church culture and not liking the way a church handles certain matters. In the subsequent qualitative study, 17 dechurched Christians were interviewed and results found that an additional reason for leaving was feeling that churches were out of touch. Interviewees shared that their best memories from church were when they experienced life together with brothers and sisters and learnt from in-depth sermon messages. Most respondents shared that they still maintained close relationship with God, hope to go back to church, and long to experience love and belong to spiritual companionship and experience presence of God. This study illustrates the importance of staying connected with dechurched Christians, and room for faith communities and fresh expression of churches to provide spiritual home for dechurched to belong.
期刊介绍：
The Review of Religious Research (RRR) publishes empirical social science research on religion, primarily in sociology and social psychology and related fields of psychology, and scholarly literature reviews of research in these fields. RRR provides a forum for research across multiple disciplines and approaches, including research on the following topical areas: Clergy; Church programs; Comparative analyses of religious denominations and institutions; Denominational and congregational growth, decline, and vitality; Denominational and congregational conflict, competition, and cooperation; Ethnicity/race and religion; Generational and personal religious change; New religious movements; Personal spiritual and religious beliefs and practices; Religion and attitudes; Religion and family; Religion and gender, Religion and social behavior; Religion and well-being; and Research methodology. Among the characteristics that distinguish RRR from other academic journals on the study of religion are its applied focus and the opportunities it offers for academics and denomination-based researchers to share their findings with each other. RRR aims to facilitate the sharing and comparing of applied studies between denominational and academic researchers. RRR is the official quarterly journal of the Religious Research Association, Inc. RRR regularly publishes Original Articles, Research Notes, Review Articles, Applied Research Abstracts, and Book Reviews, and occasionally publishes articles on the Context of Religious Research. Applied Research Abstracts: This type of publication (previously called Denominational Research Reports) consists of a 350-550 word summary (without any references) of an applied research study in the form of a structured abstract, with the following section headings: Background, Purpose, Methods, Results, and Conclusions and Implications, followed by 3-4 keywords. The author may included a footnote that states: (a) whether a complete report exists and how it can be obtained; (b) whether the raw data are available in electronic form and how they can be obtained if the authors wish to make them available to other researchers; and (c) whether the authors would like to collaborate with other researchers to further analyze the data and write a full report for possible journal publication as a peer-reviewed manuscript. Such abstracts should be submitted to the journal editor for consideration for publication. Book Reviews: Unsolicited book reviews are not accepted for publication in RRR. If you would like to review a book for the journal, contact the Book Review Editor, David Eagle, Ph.D. – david.eagle@duke.edu Context of Religious Research: This journal heading covers items about awards and announcements, memoriams, and articles about the research process (e.g., articles on research methods and statistics, and profiles of denominational research organizations), as well as invited addresses to the Religious Research Association. Unsolicited articles should be submitted to the journal editor for consideration for publication. Original Articles: These are scholarly and methodologically sophisticated research studies: see Information for Authors on this website and the Submission Guidelines on the Springer RRR website for details (https://www.springer.com/13644) Reseach Notes: These are scholarly and methodologically sophisticated research studies: see Information for Authors on this website and the Submission Guidelines on the Springer RRR website for details (https://www.springer.com/13644) Review Articles: Authors should send an email to the journal’s editor describing the nature and scope of a proposed literature review to see if it is suitable for publication in RRR. See Information for Authors on this website and the Submission Guidelines on the Springer RRR website for details (https://www.springer.com/13644) The journal’s editor is Kevin J. Flannelly, Ph.D. – kjflannelly@gmail.com
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