Why is church membership on the decline? 2008 AFP

For decades, denominations across the US have reported a decline in church membership. Some blame busy schedules, a few point to children's Sunday sports games , but most attribute the empty pews to Generation-Y's shift away from organized religion.

Have you been hearing fewer 'amens' in church recently?

Church membership decline

Why are less and less people going to church?

Storified by AJAMStream· Thu, Aug 22 2013 14:46:08

The graph below compares the percentage of people in 1990 vs. 2012 who are non-affiliated. The data, courtesy of the General Social Survey , is broken down by age group.

Percent non-affiliatedajamstream

Religion of Millennialsajamstream

'Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus', to " highlight the difference between Jesus and false religion". Millennials have given a face to these statistics by telling their stories online. In 2012, Jefferson Bethke uploaded the following video entitled,, to " highlight the difference between Jesus and false religion".

Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus || Spoken Wordbball1989

And Bethke is not alone. In a recent blog post , several millennials shared their stories of leaving the church. Here are a few excerpts:

"Left church because I wanted to find a place where people went to be alive and not hide behind an idolatry of doctrine or poorly exegeted Scripture passages."

"The Bible and God were twisted into something ugly and frightening. Most of the time, people just wanted to step on us, to grind their Christian truth into us with their heel."

But not all churches are experiencing a decline. Community member Laci Barrow (@Laci_Barrow), pointed out during our first #openeditorial meeting on June 28 that megachurches are seeing an increase in membership.