Every year Canadian news agencies post a couple of articles about the state of church attendance. This year was interesting because within the same week national outlets posted one article on the ‘packed pews’ in evangelicals mega-churches, followed by another article about the shrinking attendance in every other kind of church no labelled ‘mega’.

To be expected, evangelicals jumped on the latter article triumphantly pointing out, ‘their church was growing so much they were dropping millions into expansion.’

What’s really happening in the Canadian church landscape? Is all doom and gloom or roses and pixie dust?

Nothing has changed since last year (or years prior) when I posted the ‘Rejoicing in the Sinking of the Titanic‘. Overall church attendance is down and there is no sign of recovery. Evangelicals, or rather, more accurately, the ‘mega churches’ which would include Catholics and Mormons, are indeed growing.

Why is there growth only in mega? Simply put increase is largely attributed to existing ‘religious transfers’ or consumer minded religious folks who are attracted to the best and brightest lights in Christendom.

This isn’t the story found within the growing mega church walls. Their assertion? They’re the champions of a winning formula. That would be the case if only one particular denomination, say the evangelicals, were winning the day. That’s not the case as it appears all mega churches are ‘winning’.

Where evangelicals boast the most is the tiny uptick in overall attendees over the past 50-70 years. They’ve seen a slight uptick from 8-11% (11% of Canadians count themselves as ‘evangelical’). Add in population growth and the evangelicals have indeed grown.

Again, no discussion on how this increase has happened, a crucial question when digesting why there is growth. Evangelicals would suggest that it’s through their ‘evangelicalism’. That mega churches are baptising new believers is certainly true, but in churches of thousands the baptisms amount to mere additions. Don’t get me wrong, that’s more than anybody else, but does not account for the entirety (or majority) of increase.

The story has yet to change, transfers, not conversions are the main source of new attendees for mega.

But the real story is the largest noticeable trend in the past half century. It’s not evangelicals, although they would prefer to take the attention, rather the ‘none’ category, people who claim no religious affiliation. This group has grown an astounding 2500% to account for about 25% of all Canadians.

Conclusion? Nobody is winning the day. In the very least we are being exposed to a demonstrable cultural shift that some chose to ignore as the walls slowly collapse around the last bastion of church.