Key Takeaways

1. Communio founder J.P. De Gance appeared on Just the News and America’s Voice to explain the connection between declining marriage rates and America’s record-low birth rates.

2. The number of people getting married in America is roughly a third less than it was in the year 2000 — and De Gance argues this is the single biggest explanation for the fertility crisis.

3. The birth rate decline is not primarily an economic problem. It is a relational one. People aren’t skipping marriage because they can’t afford it — they’re skipping it because the cultural pathway to marriage has broken down.

4. The local church is the most capable institution in society to rebuild that pathway — through intentional, community-rooted relationship and marriage ministry.

5. Churches that invest in helping singles, young couples, and families build healthy relationships now are making the most consequential investment in their community’s future.

The Story: A Number That Should Stop Every Pastor in Their Tracks

When J.P. De Gance sat down with Just the News recently, he offered a statistic that cuts through the noise of every policy debate about America’s demographic crisis.

The number of people getting married in America is approximately a third less than it was in the year 2000.

Not slightly fewer. Not marginally down. A third less — in a single generation.

De Gance, founder and president of Communio, made the same case in a separate interview on America’s Voice: that decline in marriage formation is not a footnote to the birth rate crisis. It is the primary explanation for it. When fewer people marry, fewer children are born. When fewer children are born, communities age, congregations shrink, and the social fabric that holds neighborhoods together begins to fray.

The fertility crisis that dominates headlines — and that lawmakers in Washington are increasingly alarmed by — is, at its root, a marriage crisis. And that means the solutions being debated at the policy level are addressing the wrong upstream cause.

Watch J.P. De Gance’s full interview on Just the News here and on America’s Voice here.

The Core Finding: Marriage Is the Hinge Point for Everything That Follows

The connection De Gance draws between marriage and birth rates isn’t a theory — it’s one of the most consistently replicated findings in social science.

People who marry have children at significantly higher rates than those who don’t. Married households provide the stability, commitment, and shared vision that makes the decision to bring children into the world feel not just possible, but meaningful. When marriage declines, birth rates follow — not because people suddenly don’t want children, but because the relational foundation that makes family formation natural has eroded.

This is why the standard economic explanation for falling birth rates — housing costs, student debt, career pressure — tells only part of the story. Those factors are real. But they don’t explain why even people with stable incomes and good careers are marrying later, having fewer children, or not marrying at all. The deeper issue is cultural and relational. A generation has grown up without strong models of marriage, without communities that support and celebrate it, and without a clear pathway from young adulthood into committed partnership.

Communio’s own Nationwide Study on Faith and Relationships reinforces this picture. The research found that 80% of regular churchgoers were raised in homes where their biological parents stayed married — a striking reminder that marriage doesn’t just produce children. It produces the kind of stable formation environment where faith, character, and the desire for committed relationship are cultivated in the next generation.

When that chain breaks, the effects compound across decades.

The Counterintuitive Angle: Washington Can’t Fix This — But Your Church Can

Every few months, a new policy proposal emerges to address the birth rate crisis. Tax credits for families. Childcare subsidies. Pro-natalist incentives. These conversations matter at the margins. But De Gance’s argument — made clearly in both interviews — is that policy is reaching for a lever that isn’t there.

You cannot legislate your way to a marriage culture. You cannot subsidize your way to a generation that chooses commitment. The pathway to marriage is built relationally, communally, and over time — in the environments where young people are known, supported, and formed.

That is exactly the environment the local church is designed to create.

No other institution in American life sits at the intersection of relational formation, moral vision, and genuine community the way the local church does. And no other institution has both the motivation and the relationships to do what policy cannot: help people move from isolation and uncertainty toward the kind of committed partnership that leads to marriage, family, and the next generation of believers.

The birth rate crisis isn’t waiting for Washington to solve it. It’s waiting for pastors to recognize that this is their moment — and that they already have what’s needed to lead.

What This Means for Your Church

At Communio, the connection De Gance made on Just the News and America’s Voice is the heartbeat of everything we do.

Marriage formation doesn’t begin at the altar. It begins years earlier — in the relationships young adults build, the communities that surround them, and the churches that either invest in their relational development or leave them to navigate it alone. A church that serves singles well, that creates environments where healthy relationships can form, and that walks with couples through their early years of marriage isn’t just doing good ministry. It is directly addressing the upstream cause of the demographic and spiritual crisis facing the country.

Think about the young adults in your congregation right now. The singles in their mid-to-late twenties who want marriage but don’t know how to get there. The newly married couples navigating the first hard years without a roadmap. The families quietly under strain who haven’t asked for help. Each of these represents both a person in need and an opportunity for the church to do what no policy or program can: offer genuine community, formation, and support at the moment it matters most.

Communio partners with churches to build exactly this kind of relational ministry — from outreach events that welcome singles and couples into the community, to skills-based marriage education that equips couples for the long haul. It’s a full-circle approach, built around the conviction that when churches invest in relationships, everything else follows: stronger marriages, more children raised in faith, growing congregations, and communities that are more stable and more hopeful.

The marriage crisis is real. The birth rate data is sobering. But the opportunity in front of the local church has never been clearer.

Take the Next Step

Communio partners with churches across Evangelical, Protestant, and Catholic contexts to build data-informed relationship and marriage ministry proven to strengthen congregations and renew communities.

► Watch J.P. De Gance on Just the News → justthenews.com

► Watch J.P. De Gance on America’s Voice → americasvoice.news

► Explore Communio’s Nationwide Study on Faith and Relationships → communio.org/study

Credit: This post draws on J.P. De Gance’s interviews on Just the News and America’s Voice, and Communio’s Nationwide Study on Faith and Relationships.