Why Young Adults Leave Church
is blogging on some of the most common reasons 25-35 seems to be a dead spot for young adults when it comes to engaging in church life.
If you’re in youth ministry of any sort then this is a blog you need to be reading
Here are a few snippets:
From Your Faithclock is Ticking
In Logan’s Run death comes at thirty. For young adult Christians in the West it seems to be some time between 25 and 35 that the fire of faith begins to dim. For some it will remain a faint flicker, they will retain some kind of allegiance to Christianity; despite the fact their faith has lost any active component. Others will find their faith simply growing cold and then dying, the way a campfire goes out, it is burning when you go to sleep, but when you wake in the cold of the morning, it is nothing but cool ashes. You don’t know at what point it went out over night, but the fact remains it has gone out. Others will throw in the towel deliberately. It could be that a life of faith has simply become too hard, or perhaps faith did not deliver the kind of life that they thought that it was promising and thus it is abandoned.
and…
Everything changes when I ask my favourite question “How long do you guys plan on staying in this church?… Ten years?’ I normally get two responses. Response number one is “Are you joking. Ten years!!!” this is usually followed by laughter. The second response is simply blank stares, as if I have asked them a question in Swahili. My experience is that it does not matter what sort of church young adults are attending, be it large, small, emerging, contemporary, traditional; they are not planning on hanging around for any more than 3 years if you are lucky.
From Reason no.1 ‘Choice Anxiety’:
Christian young adults are stuck with a constant splinter in the mind, the never ending nagging feeling that they might have made the wrong decision. Maybe they have chosen the wrong church to attend, should they be at the hip contemporary mega-church down the road, or the small emerging church in the next suburb, or should they rejoin their friends and family at the traditional church that they grew up in? Did they even make right choice in following Christ? Maybe they should move Cities, States, Countries? Should they change partners, careers, lifestyles, ethics?
From Reason no.2 Post Christian Identity:
Christianity is perceived in the popular imagination as being intellectually ludicrous, our behaviour and opinions are seen as bigoted. Whilst obviously I disagree with these assessments, they are a daily reality for many young adults trying to live out their faith in the secular world.
From Reason no.3 The Pornification of Christian Resources:
I am constantly meeting young adults who are still passionate about their faith, but are no longer part of a faith community. When I ask them why, they tell me that there is no need. I ask them how they grow as Christians? They will tell me that they download podcasts from some of the worlds best preachers, they watch sermons on line from cutting edge churches, they read books from well known Christian writers, and attend all kinds of conferences and worship seminars. Some even regularly go on ‘mission trips’ to the third world. Many now choose to not go to their local church because every Sunday they can roll out of bed at midday and turn on Christian cable and watch services from the world’s most successful churches. They read blogs ( irony duly noted ) and frequent Christian chat rooms to connect with other believers. Like the Japanese Otaku they feel that technology has superseded their need for real world - real time relationships.
i think there is a largely unexplored consequence of churches failing to cater for the change in faith stages of young adults (see fowler and jamieson for eg). While they are changing developmentally, experiencing the multiplicity of “greys and truths”, many churches are locked into a black and white understanding of God and the world around them and it just doesn’t have the capacity to hold the tension of the questions being wrestled with by these young adults.
Ironically the mystery of God and his Truth that contains all truths, and many of the ancient traditions and rhythms of the church actually sit inside this challenge perfectly, just like they are equally able to dance with postmodernism without fear or threat.
Unfortunately many of our current churches are maintained inside a one-dimensional, efficiency and production/reproduction model of gathering that just can’t handle the confusion, doubts and questions that young adults are wading through.
Whereas these young crew need space to be unsure and possibly even “heretical”, the church often seeks to reign them in even tighter, making sure they are kept busy in roles of service and leadership, living lives of holiness and being ‘above reproach’.
ahhhh if i had a dollar for every time i went over this stuff in my head.
Comment by otherendup — June 5, 2008 @ 7:55 pm