Things are looking rather bleak for the church as an institution in the latest Gallup polling. From the Gallup website: “Americans’ membership in houses of worship continued to decline last year, dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup’s eight-decade trend. In 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque, down from 50% in 2018 and 70% in 1999.”
But why is this happening?
For the answer to that we turn to The Barna Group, a market research company specializing in studying the religious beliefs and behavior of Americans, and the intersection of faith and culture.
George Barna founded the company in 1984 and his work is frequently cited as an authoritative source by the media. Barna has been hailed as “the most quoted person in the Christian Church today” and has been named by various media as one of the nation’s most influential Christian leaders.
Simply put, what both Gallup and Barna have discovered boils down to this: the older you are the more religious you are and the younger you are the less religious you are. So it’s obviously a young people issue.
Barna discovered there are six reasons why young people leave the church after talking to people age 18 to 29 who were both current or former churchgoers.
Reason No. 1—The church seems over protective. One quarter of them think the church demonizes anything outside the church and that the church ignores the problems of the real world.
Reason No. 2—Teens’ and 20-somethings’ experience of Christianity is shallow. One third said that church is boring, and one quarter said faith is not relevant to my career or interests. Sadly, 20% said God seems missing from my church experience.
Reason No. 3—Churches come across as antagonistic to science. Thirty-five percent said Christians are too confident they know all the answers, and 29% said the church is out of step with the scientific world we live in.
Reason No. 4—Young Christians’ church experiences related to sexuality are often simplistic and judgmental. One of the significant tensions for many young believers is how to live up to the church’s expectations of chastity and sexual purity in this culture, especially as the age of first marriage is now commonly delayed to the late 20s. Forty percent said the church’s teachings on sexuality and birth control are out of date.
Reason No. 5—They wrestle with the exclusive nature of Christianity. Younger Americans have been shaped by a culture that esteems open-mindedness, tolerance and acceptance. Today’s youth and young adults also are the most eclectic generation in American history in terms of race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, technological tools and sources of authority.
Reason No. 6—The church feels unfriendly to those who doubt. Young adults with Christian experience say the church is not a place that allows them to express doubts. They do not feel safe admitting that sometimes Christianity does not make sense.
If churches are going to survive, these issues have to be addressed, especially if getting younger people to come back to the church is their goal.
But there is a conundrum. If churches focus solely on the young people, they risk excluding the older members who are the most religious of all. Finding a happy medium is going to be tough, but if they don’t do it the church will have a hard time surviving as the older members die.
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