Why are the Millennials Dropping Out of Church?
- Posted on March 09, 2010
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- (16) comments
According to a Pew Center report on "millenials" (Americans who are younger than 30): "Fewer young adults belong to any particular faith than older people do today. They also are less likely to be affiliated than their parents' and grandparents' generations were when they were young. Fully one-in-four members of the Millennial generation -- so called because they were born after 1980 and began to come of age around the year 2000 -- are unaffiliated with any particular faith. Indeed, Millennials are significantly more unaffiliated than Generation Xers were at a comparable point in their life cycle (20 percent in the late 1990s) and twice as unaffiliated as Baby Boomers were as young adults (13 percent in the late 1970s)."
The Dallas Morning News writer Jeff Weiss did some digging into the Pew study and found what he thought was a contradiction:
"Young adults' beliefs about life after death and the existence of heaven, hell and miracles closely resemble the beliefs of older people today. Though young adults pray less often than their elders do today, the number of young adults who say they pray every day rivals the portion of young people who said the same in prior decades. And though belief in God is lower among young adults than among older adults, Millennials say they believe in God with absolute certainty at rates similar to those seen among Gen Xers a decade ago."
What's the deal?
Here's the conclusion that Weiss comes to: young adults are not losing faith, just unplugging from religious institutions at a rate unprecedented in U.S. history.
YIKES.
Not that we didn't already know this.
My question: Why?
Why are young people dropping out of the church like flies?
Do you think they'll ever come back?
What do we need to do to change the trend?
What is YOUR church doing to reach 'millenials' with great success?
Share your thoughts... please!
Todd
Comments
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Dave on Thu, March 11, 2010
Matt,
My take on “it’s all about me” being a prominent attitude in millenials is based upon my interaction with students at a nearby Campus Ministry and my own 19 year old daughter (and her friends). I hear the complaint “there is nothing at our church for me!” (While about 10% of our worship attendance consists of Millenials from a nearby campus & many who are working part-time jobs who choose to come because they can connect with our Sr. Pastor and worship style). When I suggest “why don’t you start a small group for your friends?” I get “I don’t know how”.
I dialogue with those doing campus ministry and they say “kids raised in church youth groups are NOT those who become leaders in the campus ministry because ‘youth group kids’ have spent their teen years with a Youth Pastor (and a few volunteers) who did all the teaching, did all the preparation for the wacky events, and only expected the teens to show up, have a good time, and maybe bring their friends so they could have a good time also.”
Unchurched Millennials don’t even think of the local church as a place that might offer something of value to their life and churched millennials have been entertained and placated to the point that they think church is all about providing programs that they enjoy.
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