One in two teens will drift from God and the church after high school.
“Nones”, that is, people who do not identify with any faith tradition, are on the rise in the United States, going from 16% to 22% in just 7 years.
18-29 year olds are 17% of the population and 10% of our American congregations.
Statistics like these are jarring, aren’t they? These numbers, culled by the Pew Research Center and examined in the book Growing Young by Kara Powell, Jake Mulder, and Brad Griffen, have served as a shot of espresso to the comfortable and even lethargic machine that is the American church. I was in seminary when this report was first released and I remember the stressed questions professors and students alike had regarding the American church. Are we no longer relevant? Have we been evangelizing all wrong? Are we dying? What is God up to in all of this?
This study is rarely far from thought when I go about the work of caring for our youth and connecting with young adults. I don’t pretend to even know what our response to this cultural shift should be, but I am at least mindful that nothing is guaranteed with our future religious landscape. We cannot presume that the values and experiences we older generations had when we were in our teens and early twenties are the same for young people today. So much is vying for the attention of teens and young adults and they have countless opportunities and stressors. Most of our high school sophomores are already being asked to think about colleges and areas of studies; a pressure that was non-existent twenty years ago. Couple this with a mindfulness younger people have in regards to today’s political instabilities and we might see that the church feels out of touch to young people, if we do not also care about these same concerns. We can see how questions about the church’s relevancy are warranted.
So what about the questions I raised earlier? Are we no longer relevant? Have we been evangelizing all wrong? Are we dying? What is God up to in all of this? One of the more encouraging lessons I am learning, thanks to the aforementioned book Growing Young, is that the first step in ministering and attracting younger people to church is to assume that God is up to something good! The church is not ours, but Christ’s. The church from its inception has gone through seasons of growth, persecution, joy, trouble, controversy, and revival and this season is no different. Even when our well-intentioned efforts turn out to be mistakes, we trust that Redeemer God is at work despite and even amid our mistakes. God loves all people, old and young alike, and is at work equipping the church for the evolving world. We are free to take risks.
Over the next several months, I will be addressing different sub-topics within the subject of church growth and youth in this newsletter forum, but these daunting questions are where I want us to start. The numbers might seem cringe worthy in our performance and results driven society, but we, the church, can look to our future with humility, excitement, and expectation. God loves the church and we are here to minister to the world for such a time as this.
~Pastor Beth