Can the Mainline Rise Again?

What Resurrection Might Look Like for the Mainline Church

Last Sunday I helped lead a membership class at our downtown location, and honestly, I went in expecting the usual. Coffee, name tags, and some small talk. What I got instead was something that felt a lot like hope wearing everyday clothes.

The Room That Blew My Mind

Going around the circle, we met a same-sex couple who told us they’d been burned by the church but wanted to belong again. There was a single dad with three teenage sons, each one respectfully listening and engaging. A single mom who’d adopted her son from Ethiopia sat next to a retired Black man who was getting back into church after having a stroke. And there was another guy who spends his days helping other men get back on their feet after being in prison, looking for a church that can fill his cup.

I’ve been in ministry long enough to know when you’re witnessing something real. This wasn’t a carefully curated photo op for the church website. These were actual people with complicated stories, sitting in a circle on a Sunday afternoon because somewhere deep down, they still believed church could be good. Could be home. Could be worth the risk of showing up.

And sitting there I thought: this is beautiful. This is hopeful. This is the future of the mainline church.

Membership Class 11/09/25 (Resurrection Downtown)

The Grief We’re Not Supposed to Talk About

Look, I’m not going to gaslight you about the numbers. The decline of mainline Protestantism is real, and if you’re part of a mainline church, you’ve probably felt it in ways that statistics can’t quite capture. According to Pew Research, mainline Protestant identification dropped from 18 percent of U.S. adults in 2007 to about 11 percent by 2024.¹ The ELCA has lost nearly 40 percent of its members since the early 2000s.² The United Methodist Church is living through one of the biggest splits in its history, with thousands of congregations walking away.

And here’s the part that keeps me up some nights: only about 2 percent of adults under thirty identify as mainline Protestant.³ That’s not a typo. 2 percent.

Those aren’t just data points, they’re the pews where your parents used to sit, the choirs that used to fill the sanctuary, the fellowship halls that don’t quite hum the way they used to. There’s real grief in that, and I think we should name it. We’ve lost some things that mattered.

But maybe (and I know this sounds like the kind of thing pastors say when they’re trying to make you feel better about obviously bad news) maybe the decline isn’t the tragedy we think it is. Maybe it’s the pruning that comes before new growth.

What I’m Seeing Nobody Talks About

Because here’s what the decline narrative misses: beneath all those statistics about institutional collapse, something quieter is happening. The Public Religion Research Institute found that most mainline clergy are actually optimistic about the future.⁴ Not in a toxic positivity kind of way, but because they’re seeing renewal happen through small-scale community work, through creative worship, and through the courageous decision to actually mean it when we say “all are welcome.”

I see it in my own work. So many adults showing up for communion after years of bailing on organized religion. Recovery groups meeting in old sanctuaries. Small groups around coffee tables. People discovering that liturgy isn’t stuffy, it’s this poetry you can stand on when everything else is shaking.

That membership class I mentioned? Almost every single person in that room had walked away from church at some point. They came back not because we had better programming or hipper music (although ours is fantastic), but because they found a community that was willing to sit with their doubts, hold their anger, and say “yeah, the church has messed up a lot, but I can still belong here.”

If Resurrection Happens, It’ll Look Different

If the mainline does rise again, and I believe it will, it won’t look like the 1950s. It’ll be smaller and slower, but it might also be holier, more honest, more like the gospel we claim to follow.

Here’s what I think that could look like:

1. We lean into the theological depth that’s always been our strength. We don’t need celebrity preachers or production value that rivals a concert. Our tradition has rich soil, liturgical beauty, intellectual rigor, a gospel big enough to hold both mystery and meaning. We just need to remember how to translate depth into language that doesn’t require a seminary degree to understand.

2. We continue down the path of radical inclusion. A table truly open to everyone across race, gender, and sexuality. When we love without asterisks, we look most like Jesus. And people are starving for that kind of unconditional welcome.

3. We focus on local impact over national trends. The church around the corner that tutors kids, hosts recovery meetings, feeds the hungry, that’s where the kingdom breaks in. Mainline churches have never been about spectacle. They’ve been about showing up, week after week, whether anyone notices or not. And we need to keep that up.

Why I Still Show Up

I understand the cynicism. Institutions have earned our distrust. But the church isn’t primarily an institution, it’s a people. And the people I keep meeting are the reason I still believe.

That same-sex couple learning to trust again. That single dad trying to raise good men in a world that makes it hard. That single mom and her son finding a community of love. The retired man finding purpose after a hard season of battling his health. The middle-aged man pouring into other men’s lives.

If that’s not resurrection, I don’t know what is. The mainline might look a little bit fragile right now, and maybe fragility is exactly what resurrection requires. God’s favorite raw material has always been dust, after all. Things that look dead. Situations where hope seems foolish.

So no, the mainline isn’t dead. It’s practicing resurrection.

And I’m here for it.

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1. Pew Research Center, “Decline of Christianity in the U.S. Has Slowed, May Have Leveled Off,” February 26, 2025.

2. Religion Unplugged, “Just How Bad Is Denominational Decline?” June 12, 2023.

3. Graphs About Religion, “The Remnant: Inside the World of Young Mainline Protestants,” 2024.

4. Public Religion Research Institute, “Clergy and Congregations in a Time of Transformation,” 2023.