A recent article was published in USA Today entitled “Young Adults aren’t sticking with Church” (Click here for the article)I have to tell you, I understand why, but I never did until I became a “young adult”.
My dad is a pastor and I have always grown up in church. I remember being actively invovled in youth group and hearing the statistics that over 50% of students that grow up in church turn their back on their faith when they leave high school, and thinking how can that happen? I didn’t understand it, but then I graduated highschool. Once you leave high school the community you once felt in your youth group is gone and you set off “on your own” The truth you know, or thought you knew is bombarded with worldy stuff and it is tough to stand your ground. The best point the article makes is that most young adults don’t feel like church has anything to do with their relationship with God. Today’s society is all about finding your own spiritual journey, finding what works for you and if someone doesn’t accept that then they are judgmental and close minded. Spiritualness is all about the individual so there isn’t a need for church because it is personal and doesn’t need to be shared with others. That is the thinking any way.
The question that churches need to start asking is how do you change that way of thinking? Everyone desires a sense of community and wants to fit in somewhere. But churches do not provide that most of the time for people after they leave high school. There is a gap between high school and adulthood. So they look for the community in other places and that is when the mentality of my relationship with God is between me and God and I don’t need anyone else begins. In their new communities they find anything goes and the truth they once knew begins to be questioned. So the question is, how do you make people see the importance of church and the importance of connecting with other believers, which ultimately will lead to the importance of relationship with God? And how to you build that community after highschool? That is what nobody seems to be able to figure out. Sometimes it seems that churches can’t figure it out, so they give up trying, but because of that churches are losing people to the world.
Please don’t misunderstand me, I think that most churches really are making a difference in God’s kingdom. There are the churches out there that reach out to their community and are the first to respond in crisis or disaster. There are churches that are biblicaly sound and strive to let God guide them, they grow and really impact their community. I don’t want to give off the “I hate church” idea, because the opposite is true. I love church. The church is the bride of Christ. God designed the church to influence this world and the churches that do it God’s way are doing that. But the church needs to realize that a “we don’t need church” generation is forming and it is time for the church, each church, to look at what that means for them and what they can do to change that way of thinking.
Great questions. It seems though that you lean towards differentiating between “the church” and people of faith who are just leaving high school. I’m not sure I understand the difference. You indicate that the church should supply a sense of community for these believers. Aren’t these believers the church?
Maybe the question should be what are these believers doing to encourage one another, support each other, build a sense of community, reach peers, and pursue Jesus? After all they are the church.
That is a great point, Scott! I am saying that it is hard for believers leaving highschool to find their place in the church and sometimes when you don’t have a place somewhere there isn’t much motivation to go back.
But you make a great challenge to those in the “young adult” age frame. Instead of complaining about the place the church doesn’t have they should (or we should) encourage each other to create that place and through that a sense of community can be born in the church again. So really it is time for the “we don’t need church generation” to step up and realize the importance of church and do some work to get invovled and seek after God to see what their place in church should be instead of taking the easy way out and saying church isn’t for me… because like you said the church is a body of believers so why aren’t young adults creating that with fello believers?
Great comment, Scott. It got me thinking, thats for sure. : )
Great article! I have seen this for years, as churches focus so intently on the youth group until they graduate high school. Then there’s no continuing church group that they can find that sense of community in and they’re on their own. The most successful church I attended had an amazing retention rate among their youth after high school. They did have a great youth program, but they also put time and energy into a college and career program. Former youth group members ultimately became teachers and assistants in the church. It was the perfect balance and, I believe, the pattern I need to follow for the church I pastor.