Abstract:
Based on Practical Theology, the objective of the research is to analyze the movement of unchurched people, which is part of a larger scenario of crisis of religious belonging that affects Brazilian evangelical and Protestant churches, generating evasion in the community of faith and deinstitutionalization.The thesis is that unchurching is the result of the institutional crisis that the church is going through, a lack of belonging that expands to all spheres of society, including the religious area. The methodology was a bibliographic review and netnography. Social networks, Facebook and YouTube, were studied because they are a space of time where one can evaluate how unchurched people express themselves regarding the church. Also using netnography as a methodological basis, two evangelical churches were monitored for two years to analyze how the broadcast of services is carried out over the internet, where many unchurched people seek spiritual nourishment. After the introduction, the first chapter presents the concept of the unchurched, the existing subgroups and the reasons why they left the church. The second chapter addresses the internet as a space for the mediatization of religion and focuses on social networks, Facebook and YouTube, as places where unchurched people live. The third chapter is about the crisis of religious belonging that society is going through today and that affects the religious area. The last chapter focuses on Practical Theology as a tool for analyzing the current church and five possible actions for the leadership to face unchurching (leadership self- assessment, religious education, active search, home meeting and online worship), the advantages and disadvantages of online worship and examples of two churches that develop virtual ministries with the transmission of worship over the internet. Finally, the conclusion. The result of this research points to the main reasons that lead people to leave the congregation. Unchurched people disagree with: the institutionalization of the church; the variety of religious denominations; the secularization of historical churches; the professionalization of the pastorate; search for a Theology degree recognized by the Ministry of Education; the variety of church growth methods where leaders seek the number of people to the detriment of the spiritual quality of the members; ministries that only focus on meetings that aim to meet leadership goals; competition among people to achieve goals; spiritual abuse of leaders; organizational structure (temple, regular Sunday worship, treasury, offices, offerings, tithes, CNPJ, official clergy, confession of faith, membership list, property, school or seminary); the hierarchy that does not allow the priesthood of all believers to be lived; the church as a company with pastors who seek financial profit; Prosperity Theology; and sexual and financial scandals. The results of the study reveal that it is necessary to dialogue with this public and that the leadership must do a self-analysis to correct problems in the church that lead people to leave the communities; invest in religious education; actively seek out members who have abandoned the congregation; invest in home meetings to provide care among people; and the engagement of churches in broadcasting worship online as a way to help unchurched people not lose their connection with the congregation.
