Church? No Thanks…
- Posted by: Todd
- Posted on: Tue, April 22, 2008
- Viewed 209
- (53) comments so far
Findings from the study, in which 1,023 adults, ages 18 to 30, were surveyed, reveal that 97% of dropouts give specific life-change issues as their reason for leaving. Only 20% of the dropouts predetermined their post high school departure.
“The most frequent reason for leaving church is, in fact, a self-imposed change, ‘I simply wanted a break from church’ (27%),” according to a LifeWay report summarizing the study. “The path toward college and the workforce are also strong reasons for young people to leave church: ‘I moved to college and stopped attending church’ (25%) and ‘work responsibilities prevented me from attending’ (23%).”
Following are some similar findings cited by the Youth Transition Network (YTN), a coalition of some of the nation’s largest denominations and ministries that are working together to help reduce the dramatic loss of youth from the church:
“An Assemblies of God study showed a loss of 66% of their students within one year of high school graduation.”
“A Southern Baptist transition project estimates an 82% loss of youth within one year of high school graduation.”
“Fifty to eighty percent of high school students walk away.”
“As someone who recognizes the importance of an ever-growing faith, especially during the college years, these are staggering statistics,” said Cyndi Forman, campus minister of the Baptist Collegiate Ministry (BCM) of Georgia Tech and Emory University. “The statistics are sad, disappointing and dangerous, all at the same time.”
You can read more here at OneNewsNow...
FOR YOUR INPUT: So… has your church been successful in reaching this age group, or are you an unfortunate part of these statistics? How do you think your church can change to fill this void?
Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Open the doors. Where are all the people? Seventy percent of the people, 23 to 30 years old, are nowhere to be found in church on a regular basis for at least a year between the ages of 18 and 22. They become church dropouts, according to a 2007 study from LifeWay Research. These students who attended a Protestant church at least twice a month for at least one year during high school are leaving the church, and most of them are doing so during their first year of college...
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Wendi on Wed, April 23, 2008
Whoa . . .
My bible says “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” and “ for it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”
I fully understand that a transformed life produces fruit, but in the mystery of sanctification, every tree doesn’t produce at the same pace or in the same fashion. We needn’t cheapen grace by maintaining our conviction that salvation comes through faith alone . . . isn’t earned by works nor unearned by lack of works.
Andy, IMO it’s more than a little presumptuous to claim that the young people who stop going to church aren’t really saved. I think we should leave that one in God’s shop.
Wendi
GR Guy on Wed, April 23, 2008
Have we as parents and church leaders invested in young people at an early age so that they are invested in the church? Have we asked them to serve and to give of themselves in ministry? Have we shown in our own lives that church is a priority? Have we made church relevant to modern life? Have we shown why the Bible and church are significant and why they should care?
CS on Wed, April 23, 2008
Wendi:
“grace by maintaining our conviction that salvation comes through faith alone . . . isn’t earned by works nor unearned by lack of works.”
That’s right. In living in grace, we don’t earn anything to that with our works, and we cannot lose it by messing up occasionally. It is so awesome that God has done such a glorious thing for us.
Simultaneously, having grace is not a license to sin. Your Bible likely says the same things in mine about Romans 6, Hebrews 10:26, and 1 John 3:8. We cannot remain in a lifestyle of sin and expect things to be all well. So, while sanctification is an action that takes time and manifests in different ways, there still has to be that element of repentance and some demonstration of a life being changed.
“Andy, IMO it’s more than a little presumptuous to claim that the young people who stop going to church aren’t really saved. I think we should leave that one in God’s shop.”
We, as mere humans on earth, ultimately do not know who will go where—that judgment is for God. At the same time, we have been given the ability to discern, to warn, and to examine things in love, to help people here be soundly saved.
Subjectively speaking, I agree with Andy to a point. My bet is that the majority of those people who walk away from church do so because they aren’t saved. I would not use the word “all” as he did, because even one person being saved in that group would invalidate the statement. But the reasons given seem indicative of people who may not be firm believers.
—
CS
Andy on Wed, April 23, 2008
GR Guy said:
Have we as parents and church leaders invested in young people at an early age so that they are invested in the church? Have we asked them to serve and to give of themselves in ministry? Have we shown in our own lives that church is a priority? Have we made church relevant to modern life? Have we shown why the Bible and church are significant and why they should care?
Uh, to answer your questions: Yes, Yes, Yes, who cares, and probably not biblically.
We’ve been hearing these same issues for decades, with the same supposed solutions.
We can teach kids to be invested in the church, serving, and giving the church priority, but without being born again it becomes no more than works righteousness. As a matter of fact, I’ve found that young kids like church a great deal, and adults can keep them interested until about 7th or 8th grade when the world holds more excitement for them than church.
As for making the church relevant to modern life, that is mostly an invention of the last 100 years. For the great majority of Christian history, claiming faith in Christ meant being hunted, persecuted, and even killed for your faith - and it still does in many parts of the world. (pretty relevant, huh)
The answer is still the same, and it applies to adults as well as young people: Those who are truly born again by God - those you can’t keep away from church and fellowship with other believers. Those who are not born again have very little interest in the things of God - and you’d have a hard time dragging them to anything spiritual. (Except of course the American version of entertainment driven me-church)
Peter Hamm on Thu, April 24, 2008
Andy writes
[As for making the church relevant to modern life, that is mostly an invention of the last 100 years.] Unless you count all the stories that Jesus told to make faith relevant to people in the Bible… telling farming stories to farmers, stuff like that.
GR Guy, I think those are good questions we should ask on a very regular basis, about the things we are doing day-to-day and week-to-week.
DanielR on Thu, April 24, 2008
Have you considered that young people may be leaving the church not because of a lack of faith in God but because of a lack of faith in the church?
I walked away from church in my youth, not because I didn’t believe or have faith in God, but because I too “needed a break from church”. The church I grew up in taught many things to the young people there, some good and some of which I came to disagree with as I grew, things like racism and the idea that women’s only purpose was to bear children and be subservient to men. Being raised by a progressive thinking single mother those things did not seem right to me.
I continued to believe in God and study scripture, as well as other religions and philosophies, and I believe God played an active role in my life, but I did not have anything to do with “church” again for over twenty years. I did not believe church had anything to teach me, church was irrelevant to my life, until I discovered there was a different way of doing church than I had grown up with. Getting married and starting a family, at the ripe old age of 44, also helped make church relevant to my life again.
GR Guy asked: Have we made church relevant to modern life?
Andy answered: …who cares?
And I think that right there is a big part of the problem, young people at that stage in life don’t see the church as relevant in their lives and many of the people running the church(es) don’t care if (young) people believe it’s relevant and don’t believe church needs to be relevant. Some people see the church as timeless and don’t believe it needs to be relevant to life today.
You hear adults say “Church is my life”, but you don’t hear many young people say things like that. Young people need to understand how church can be relevant in their lives without having to be the all-consuming center of their lives. If young people stay connected to church when they leave home they are much more likely to have church as a core part of their lives later on in life.
Some young people may be leaving the church because they indeed do not believe, there are so many things calling for people to believe in them that it is easy to lose one’s way. Some may indeed not be saved, yet. And some may be inwardly focused. But I think many young people leave church not because they don’t believe in God or don’t have faith, but because they are disillusioned with the church.
Andy on Thu, April 24, 2008
Nice try Peter, but if you’ll notice, the premise by GR Guy was how do we make CHURCH relevant to modern life, and you answered with examples of, in your opinion, how Jesus made FAITH relevant to modern life.
Your response points out exactly this mistake we make with kids - we equate their participation in church activities with actual faith in Jesus Christ. Maybe most of us don’t actually believe that that’s true, but by our actions regarding kids in church, and by the premise of this article, we kind of make that connection in a roundabout way.
My point is this: if we are given a group of kids under our care, our goal should be the salvation of their souls before they leave for college, not their continued participation in the church after they go away. If we make salvation the goal, and recognize what true salvation looks like in the bible, then continued church attendence will be the result, in general.
The modern life of most kids is fun, food, entertaining ‘noise’ (TV, internet, music, IM, video games), sports, and social interaction with the opposite sex. In order to make church relevant to their lives, we should give kids these things.
Well, as I said, we’ve been doing that for decades. Almost every youth club, group, or event I’ve ever been to, starting in the late 70s, has majored in giving kids these things in order to make church relevant. The result - Just reread the article. It DOESN’T work.
CS on Thu, April 24, 2008
DanielR:
Your story is, sadly, pretty common, with churches that do not speak complete Biblical truth. Sorry to hear about your rough younger years.
“I continued to believe in God and study scripture, as well as other religions and philosophies, and I believe God played an active role in my life, but I did not have anything to do with “church” again for over twenty years.”
Just curious, would you have considered yourself “saved” or “born again” during that time?
—
CS
Peter Hamm on Thu, April 24, 2008
Andy,
I chose my words very carefully. Jesus didn’t make the church relevant, because there wasn’t a church yet. But in making the faith relevant, we make the church relevant, too, and should try and do so.
Thinking we can “do church” the way we’ve always done it is why record numbers of churches will close their doors in the next decades, and be replaced by churches that preach the eternal Gospel in language that makes sense today, not in 1953.
Thinking we can continue to have church services and programs (many of them very good) in the way that our grandfathers did and then complaining that our churches are declining is insane.
We can make faith, real faith in the real Jesus, relevant to our young people (and our old people) or we can just sing the same old hymns again, use the same old flannel-graphs, use the same “Sunday School” model, preach the same messages, and never look at our programs and figure out what we can do better, how we can reach people with God’s message better. The message doesn’t change, how we bring it MUST!
THAT is, I believe, what the article is encouraging us to do. Does that mean that Youth Group turns into Guitar Hero night? I kinda hope not. But being culturally relevant is not evil. It can be a great good. It’s how Jesus taught, it’s how Paul taught. It’s how we should bring God’s amazing news to the next generation.
CS on Thu, April 24, 2008
What ‘s more relevant to the souls of men and women than the unchanging message of forgiveness of sins, Jesus Christ, and eternal life?
That’s what we need to be focusing on, and not having motorcycles jumping over pastors, having a better sex life, or Guitar Hero night.
—
CS
threegirldad on Thu, April 24, 2008
Peter Hamm: But being culturally relevant is not evil. It can be a great good. It’s how Jesus taught, it’s how Paul taught.
“Culturally relevant” is a loaded term with no fixed or agreed upon meaning. So I’m curious what you have in mind when you say, “It’s how Jesus taught, it’s how Paul taught.”
Peter Hamm on Thu, April 24, 2008
I’m only going to let myself be dragged back into this discussion for a moment, but okay…
Jesus told stories to people they could understand because of who they were and what they did. The parables communicated in a culturally relevant way. He did NOT spend a lot of time defining theological terms, and dare I say it, he didn’t spend NEARLY as much time exegeting scripture as he did just teaching how to follow God and Love Him and Love Others.
Paul… I love how he quotes pagan poets to make his points, how he uses sports metaphors to illustrate the idea of living the Christian life… stuff like that.
So, yeah, if it takes a motorcycle jumping through the air to make a point that will communicate the Gospel to somebody, I’ll do it!
Culturally relevant simply means that I am communicating in a manner which will make sense to the people I’m communicating to, using the culture of the day, the language of the day, the communication tools and idioms of the day. Most of us who’ve been around MMI for a while are already trying to do this. And I’m realizing that I need to keep busier doing what God has called me to do in this arena than spend too much time debating it… but I will debate it a little, at least for others’ benefit if for no other reason…
Andy on Thu, April 24, 2008
It’s interesting some of the things you seem to ascribe to me. Let me tell you a little about myself:
My church meets in a gym. We take the chairs up after the service so people can play games on that same floor. We have big screens up front to show videos, etc. We have no organ, we have electric guitars, keyboards, and drums (which have to be behind plexiglass because of noise). I don’t even know the words to as many as 10 hymns. I have led worship for young people for years, using stuff like Hillsong, Chris Tomlin, Jeff Deyo, Planetshakers, etc, never once asking the kids to open a hymnal. And I have no idea what a flannel graph is.
The point: By your standards, my church is pretty relevant, but my point is that it’s ALL irrelevant. I stay there ‘cause the pastor preaches the biblical gospel. And if he stopped, I’d happily go to one of them ‘flannel graph’ churches that preached the biblical message.
Relevant to culture or not - who cares? What’s relevant now will be not so in 10 or 20 years. (Just ask all those churches with the ‘Prayer of Jabez’ bible studies collecting dust in the church basement). We can’t make relevance a goal, because when we do we invariably have to change the message.
How this plays out in youth ministry is this: Our goal is to be relevant so that we can attract kids. We find that kids are more attracted to fun and games, and messages that talk about sex and peer pressure than they are to ‘boring old sermons’ about our need for the righteousness that comes from God.
So, we jetison the biblical call to repentance (not relevant to kids), we get rid of discussions about the holiness and sovereignty of God (also not relevant), and we refuse to talk about the biblical standard of separation from the world system (as the kids would say, SO not relevant) What’s left are youth groups which focus on fun and socialization.
The fact is, church youth ministry IS relevant to kids until they reach a certain age, at which time their interests for fun and excitement begin to conflict with biblical standards for those who are born again. (For example - young boys up until about age 12 or 13 like to run around and play games. The church can be ‘relevant’ by providing these things for them. But by about 14 or so, young boys begin to want to explore their sexuality with young girls, or they want to party, etc. It is at this point that the ‘relevant’ church loses all their relevance in the lives of young people).
And since the goal was to attract kids and keep them, and be relevant to their lives, this goal came in conflict with the biblical call to repentance, changed lives, and seperation from the world system they love so much. The result is that since they’re not saved, they leave church as soon as they are able (when they go away to college).
The solution, whether your church is relevant or not: Preach the gospel, in season and out of season. (I know, way too old fashioned)
DanielR on Thu, April 24, 2008
CS, I did not (and do not today) worry if I’m saved. My mother taught me early on that it was not up to the church to decide who was saved, it was up to God. And that there was no way of knowing; that’s why they call it faith, believing in something you can’t know. She taught me to focus on what I’m doing in my life, that whether or not we’re forgiven may depend on how much we need to be forgiven for, and that it was up to God whether He forgives us or not, that’s why they call it grace because we’re undeserving of the forgiveness we hope for. She taught me that since I can’t know whether I’m saved or not until it’s too late to do anything about it there was no sense worrying about it too much, and to focus on having faith.
Thinking about it my mother taught me so much more about faith than the church did. Maybe that was why church was not relevant to me, I did not see church as being vital in my life. And although a relationship with God was always important, I did not see church as being necessary to having that relationship with God.
Brian L. on Thu, April 24, 2008
CS and Andy,
NO ONE here is trying to say that preaching the gospel is irrelevant. It’s very tiring to hear the same ol’ “If you mention relevance you automatically mean that you don’t preach the gospel” refrain. This may not be what you’re trying to communicate, but that’s what comes across…
What we are trying to say is this: the methodology we use to bring the gospel must be something the hearers can understand.
Jesus Himself is the ultimate example for this: He could have remained in heaven, full of the glory He deserves and left us to what we deserve: damnation.
Yet He chose to come to earth in a way that was relevant: as a human who spoke the language of the people. He came in a way and spoke in a way that would be understood by those He was trying to reach.
To be relevant to those we are trying to reach is simply being Christlike.
Obviously we should not use means that are anti-Scriptural. Notice I said “anti” Scriptural, not “un” Scriptural. We can all point to examples of things in our own churches that are “un” Scriptural (pulpits, crosses on walls, etc.). No one here is advocating anti-Scriptural means of bringing the gospel.
Brian L.
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