Key Takeaways

1. The California Globe recently covered Communio’s growing impact across California, where all 12 Catholic dioceses have endorsed the program — representing more than 1,000 parishes statewide.

2. Communio’s Nationwide Study on Faith and Relationships found that 80% of Sunday churchgoers were raised in homes where their biological parents stayed married — a trend consistent across all age groups and denominations.

3. The collapse of marriage and the decline of resident fatherhood represent the strongest explanation for the decline of Christianity in America over the past four decades.

4. Communio’s model creates “non-threatening on-ramps” — community events for couples and families that draw people who would never otherwise consider attending a Sunday service.

5. When churches invest in marriages and relationships, Sunday attendance grows, communities strengthen, and faith is passed to the next generation.

The Story: A Ministry Gaining Ground in the Most Unlikely State

California isn’t typically where you’d look for a story about marriage renewal. But that’s exactly what makes this one worth paying attention to.

The California Globe — one of the state’s leading independent news outlets — recently covered Communio’s growing statewide impact, highlighting a development that signals something significant: every one of California’s 12 Catholic dioceses has formally endorsed Communio’s marriage and relationship ministry program. That’s over 1,000 parishes across the state, representing millions of Catholic faithful, now connected to a proven model for strengthening marriages and rebuilding family life from the inside out.

The announcement comes at a moment when California, like much of the country, is facing the measurable consequences of decades of family fragmentation. The average age of first marriage has risen to 30. Loneliness and disconnection are at epidemic levels, particularly among young adults. And as Communio founder and president J.P. De Gance told the Globe, a significant number of people today will never marry at all — a trend with profound implications for both society and the Church.

The Core Finding: Family Decline Fuels Faith Decline

The foundation of Communio’s work in California — and across the country — rests on a body of research that is both sobering and clarifying.

Communio’s Nationwide Study on Faith and Relationships, drawn from surveys of 19,000 Sunday churchgoers across 112 congregations in 13 states, points to a consistent and striking pattern: 80% of people attending church on any given Sunday grew up in a home where their biological parents stayed married throughout their upbringing. That finding held across age groups, denominations, and regions — including among churchgoing young adults under 30.

The implication is direct. The collapse of marriage over the past several decades isn’t just a social trend — it’s the upstream cause of church decline. As De Gance noted in the Globe article, prior research consistently shows that family breakdown through divorce produces religious non-affiliation among children. When the family fractures, faith transmission breaks with it. A generation later, the pews reflect it.

This is why California’s Catholic leadership took notice. The data doesn’t just describe a cultural problem — it points to the local church as the most capable institution to address it.

The Counterintuitive Angle: The Front Door to Faith Isn’t Sunday Morning

Here’s what makes Communio’s model in California distinctive — and what most churches miss.

The instinct when trying to grow a congregation is to invest in Sunday. Better worship, better preaching, better programming. These matter. But Communio’s approach starts somewhere else entirely: with the couples and families who haven’t stepped through the door yet.

The model centers on community events — block parties, date nights, family gatherings — designed specifically as what De Gance calls a “non-threatening on-ramp.” These aren’t church events for church people. They’re community events that happen to be hosted by a church — and they attract couples and families who would never consider attending a Sunday service on their own.

Once those families show up, something happens. They meet people who genuinely care about them. They experience a community that takes marriage and family seriously. They find a place that feels safe. And over time, that relational connection becomes the bridge to faith, discipleship, and belonging.

It’s evangelism through relationship. And in California — a state not known for openness to institutional religion — it’s working.

What This Means for Your Church

At Communio, California represents something important: proof that this model works across contexts, cultures, and demographics — not just in the Bible Belt, but in the most secular corners of the country.

If all 12 Catholic dioceses in California can align around a marriage-centered ministry strategy, the opportunity exists in every church, in every state. The need is universal. According to De Gance, young people today are navigating loneliness, disconnection, and a culture that has deprioritized human relationships in favor of material success. The local church is uniquely positioned to offer something the culture cannot: a community built around covenant love, where marriages are invested in before they break and families are formed with intention.

Think about what that could look like in your congregation. The couples who show up to a community event because the stakes are low — and stay because the community is real. The young adults who find their way to Sunday worship not through a marketing campaign, but through a relationship that began at a block party. The marriages that stabilize not because of a crisis intervention, but because the church showed up before the crisis came.

That is the vision Communio is building toward — one church at a time, one couple at a time. And California is showing it’s possible anywhere.

Take the Next Step

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

► Read the full California Globe article → californiaglobe.com

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

Credit: This post draws on reporting by Katy Grimes for the California Globe and Communio’s Nationwide Study on Faith and Relationships. Read the original California Globe article here.