churched

adj. having attended (Christian) religious services. Subjects: English, Religion

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Citations: 1950 Berkshire Evening Eagle (Pittsfield, Mass.) (Dec. 11) “Youth Church Proposed by Local Pastor” p. 4: Mr. Kibby estimated that “hundreds of thinking, ‘un-churched’ teen-agers would welcome the opportunity of being part of such an organization.” 1978 Washington Post (June 16) “Book Indicates ‘Unchurched’ More Permissive” p. A30: The 7,000 Americans interviewed for the book were grouped in five categories—churched and unchurched Protestants, churched and unchurched Catholics and “those who have no religious identification.” The affiliated who attend church once a year or less were considered unchurched. 2000 Young-gi Hong International Review of Mission (Apr. 1) “Revisiting church growth in Korean Protestantism: A theological reflection” vol. 89, no. 353, p. 190: This forces us to face the question whether the growth patterns of certain “successful” churches mainly represent their increased share of the churchgoing population, or whether they are attracting significant numbers of the formerly-churched and never-churched individuals to replace those being lost to the world. 2004 Heather Regan Southwest Daily News (La.) (June 9) “Faith community growing”: Pastor LaFleur said that communities can be broken into three groups—people who attend church regularly, those who don’t now but once did and those never “churched.”

Posted 18 Jun 04 | Permalink | Tell a Friend

Reader comments:

Growing up in the midwestern US, “the unchurched” was used in common small-town speech, although usually as a noun rather than as an adjective. I never recall hearing “churched” and it seemed very odd when I read it here. “Unchurched” was the opposite of “Christians” or of a denomination’s name, used the way Mormons say “Gentiles”

by ruth c 10 May 06, 1133 GMT

eta: This was in the 1950’s and 1960’s in Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana.

by ruth c 10 May 06, 1135 GMT

Churched, as a word, implies that an action has taken place on the person in question. It is similar to saying a person has been “fixed” with a certain mind set according to the social institution known as the church.

by Phil Johnson 11 Jun 06, 0117 GMT