An analysis published by CBN News this week argues that the American church is missing a quiet crisis: the marriage rate has fallen 65 percent since 1970, and 31 percent since 2000, and for the first time in the nation's history, a majority of adults are unmarried.

The piece, written by J.P. De Gance, founder and president of Communio, a ministry that equips churches to strengthen families, contends that the decline is not mainly a matter of economics or dating apps. At root, he writes, it is a worldview problem: parents and the wider culture now treat career success and financial security as life's main purpose, while marriage and family have slipped down the list of what matters.

The numbers he cites point to that shift. Citing Pew Research, the analysis notes that about nine in ten parents said it was important for their children to become financially independent and to have a fulfilling career, while only about two in ten said it was important for their children to marry and have children. Young adults are marrying later than previous generations, often past what the author describes as ideal child-rearing years.

Churchgoers, the piece notes, are still more likely to be married than those who do not attend church. But both groups are far less likely to be married than they were in the past, and the analysis argues that churches have largely failed to respond. Citing Barna and Communio research, it reports that a large majority of American churches spend nothing on marriage or relationship ministry, and that more than nine in ten have no ministry helping single people discern and form relationships that could lead to marriage.

That gap matters for faith itself, the author argues. A joint Communio and Institute for Family Studies finding cited in the piece identifies family as the single most important factor in whether children keep their faith into adulthood, and Communio survey research found that 80 percent of Sunday worship attendees grew up in a married home. In the author's image, marriage and faith reinforce each other like the two strands of a double helix: strong families pass on faith, and faith sustains families.

The solution the analysis proposes is to start much earlier. Rather than focusing marriage ministry mainly on engaged couples or on marriages already in trouble, churches should build communities where younger Christians can closely observe healthy marriages, where older married couples take a genuine interest in younger adults, and where young people are taught dating and discernment skills so they can choose a spouse wisely and become a good spouse themselves. Pastors, he argues, should directly challenge the consumerist and materialist ideas that crowd marriage out, and parents should talk with their children about marriage preparation early, in the same way they talk about education and careers.

The piece adds an important qualification: not everyone is called to marriage, and churches should not push people into unsuitable relationships simply to increase wedding numbers. But for those who are called to it, the author concludes, rebuilding a culture of marriage is not a side project for the church. It stands at the center of its evangelistic mission, because the families formed in the church today will shape the faith of the next generation.