As the share of Americans who identify as Christian remains stagnant, newly released survey data suggests that a contributing factor toward a lack of growth in believers may be due to Christians being increasingly hesitant to share their faith with others.

According to Pew Research data from last year, the Christian share of the U.S. population steadily declined from 78% in 2007 to 63% in 2019. Since then, negligible increases and decreases have amounted to a leveling off of the drop. Still, Pew notes that the decline in American Christian identification is likely to resume once again in future years due to the religious habits of young adults (ages 18 to 24), who are far less religious than the oldest cohort (ages 74 and older). The data found that only 46% of young adults identify as Christian (vs. 80% of oldest adults), only 27% pray daily (vs. 58%), and only 25% say they attend religious services at least monthly (vs. 49%).

Survey data released by Lifeway Research last week provides insight into one factor that is likely playing a role in the lack of growth of Christians in America. The organization’s State of Discipleship Living Unashamed study asked 2,130 Protestant churchgoers six questions about their faith, including, “Many people who know me are not aware I am a Christian.” Thirty percent of respondents said they strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement, with 17% saying they were neutral. Notably, the 30% figure is double the percentage of respondents who were in agreement with the same question in Lifeway’s 2013 study.

The survey results are in line with previous studies on the same subject. A Barna survey from 2022 found that most Christians (56%) consider their spiritual lives to be private, with the top three reasons for not sharing their faith being “They can get to Heaven through their different religious beliefs,” “We shouldn’t impose our ideas on others” and “The Bible tells us not to judge others.”

But experts like Scott McConnell, who serves as executive director of Lifeway Research, say that believers’ shyness about sharing their faith is misplaced since a significant percentage of Americans who don’t identify with a faith are still spiritually open and curious.

“[T]here’s a large number of followers of Christ that maybe aren’t intentionally hiding, but there are definitely keeping their mouth shut at some key opportunities to let others know that they’re a follower of Jesus Christ,” he observed during “Washington Watch” Tuesday. “… Twenty-eight to 30% — depending on the survey you look at — of Americans have no religion. And so I think there are a lot of Christians [who] kind of look around and they see the culture has religion or faith on mute, and they just assume they need to stay quiet, and they assume that people really are against religion and against faith. But recently, we did a survey of Americans who have no religion. And we find that only half of them would prefer that religion not belong in public life. So the very people you’d expect to be secular, they’re pretty split on the issue. And in fact, almost three out of 10 say they themselves are a person of faith, even though they don’t have a religion, and almost half of them would call themselves spiritual. And so, I think sometimes Christians are … making it bigger than it really is, when in fact, people are open to hearing your beliefs and the things that are important to you.”

McConnell went on to detail the vital components that will keep believers rooted in a life of faith.

“[E]ngaging the Bible is an important one, and engaging the Bible is more than just reading the Bible,” he emphasized. “It’s also thinking about … wanting to honor it in every area of our lives. That’s a challenging thing, and if we’re honest with ourselves, … even as we try to follow Christ, we’re still falling short. … Another signpost is building relationships. A key part of following Christ is to be in fellowship with other believers in a local church. … [W]e see it statistically that fellowship with other believers in church actually helps us follow Christ more closely. When we have significant relationships at church, when we’re involved in a small group Bible study, we see repeatedly that people are more engaged in many other aspects of following Christ.”

“[E]ven giving to their congregation is higher among those that are connected with other believers,” McConnell added. “Another signpost is … expressing thanksgiving to God several times a week. That habit of giving thanks to God is really what living unashamed is. It just means saying it verbally as we begin to talk with friends and neighbors and coworkers to just indicate that we are so thankful [for] what Jesus Christ has done in our lives and is doing in our lives. … [G]rowth in one area of following Christ tends to help us in each of the other areas of following Christ as well.”

McConnell further underscored that prayer and boldness are keys to opening up opportunities to share the faith.

“So often that starts with prayer and just saying, ‘Lord, would you give me opportunities to share?’ And the Apostle Paul himself asked for boldness,” he noted. “When it comes to living unashamed, we need to be asking God for the boldness to be willing to simply identify with Jesus Christ and let people know that’s a priority in our life. … We’ve got friends that are mentioning the sports team that they have allegiance to, and that’s important in their lives. Why can’t we be speaking up and saying the same thing about our relationship with Jesus Christ?”

McConnell concluded by drawing attention to the importance of honesty in all interactions.

“[W]hen we’re telling the success stories within a church setting, when we’re encouraging one another and being open and honest … when we build that transparency into relationships at church, and we are openly talking about how we’re following Christ, we begin to make that a habit in our lives,” he pointed out. “And it makes it easier for that to spill into conversations with people who may not be followers of Christ in our lives. And as we’re open and honest in a church setting, hopefully that integrity runs through everything in our lives.”