Stopping the Church Mass Exodus
- 01.14.11
- Church, Teenagers
- 6 Comments
Ever wonder why teens and young adults stop going to church? I do. As many as 65%-85% of churched kids will leave the church once they hit adulthood. Why do they do this, and how can we lower these numbers? Based on several sources, here are some of the main reasons why kids leave the church (and often their faith) when they grow up.
Churched kids and teens spend six of seven days each week hearing other people say how judgmental Christianity is, and that the Bible should be taboo.
Churches use outdated methods of Sunday School, rotating the same Bible stories year-in and year-out without relating the morals to daily living. When kids want to know why someone like Gabrielle Giffords was shot, they don’t need another lesson on Noah’s Ark.
Teens can only eat so much pizza at church social events before they see through this thinly veiled attempt at keeping them occupied and out of trouble.
Those surveyed say there aren’t enough good reasons given for holding Bible beliefs other than “the preacher says so…” or “your parents say so.”
Sometimes kids are routinely kept out of “grown-up church.” From infancy to four years old, they’re in nursery. Then they get “children’s church” with a short Bible lesson, crafts and refreshments. For teens, a separate youth service geared to “their” music. By eighteen, they’ve never been expected to sit through a whole Sunday service. It’s culture shock.
Young people can see that the Church in general hasn’t yet been able to conquer racial reconciliation, domestic abuse and the rampant church divorce rate…sometimes in their own families.
Older generations won’t blend a moderate amount of contemporary music with traditional hymns, to show young people that newer ideas are respected.
Or, the Church feels pressured to impress their younger members with new technological avenues. So they discard all the old hymns that were written out of peoples’ struggles with life, pride and suffering. Thus, the newer generations don’t hear about how God can help them through hard times.
Parents are expecting the church to teach what may fall within their own responsibility.
But then, young parents raised in the last twenty years have themselves grown up under the new pop psychology of never receiving or deserving any discipline or criticism. They’ve seen church become irrelevant. Now, as parents, they’re hesitant to make (or even ask) their kids to go to church or develop a backbone in faith.
Lastly, everyone’s too busy for church. There are too many other attractions in life.
Sheryl Young, a free-lance writer and a Yahoo! contributing writer of faith issues says that some churches are trying to address these problems with new programs and ministries. But, she says that some churches “will find it such a daunting task that they just throw up their hands, ” which she says is maybe the right thing to do in this situation. “Maybe it’s time to do just that — throw hands up and pray, rather than create more programs — and leave the rest up to God.”
It is important that people do not confuse leaving the Church with leaving a church or that we think we really understand after having a couple of conversations. Depth in understanding takes effort and intention and some excavation. People …are not likely to really say “why” if they fear hurting leadership they love or if they don’t yet have the skills for personal confrontation and discernment to really perceive the reasons they feel disenfranchised. The church must stop these endless stats evaluations and give all of its people, young and older and old the vision and purpose of Jesus as presented in Scripture. We must give our people something to challenge them each week. Something that convicts and that has passion. We must communicate personal passion and depth from our pulpits. We must stop marketing and weep and shout and pray and love. We must allow the pain of leading people to permeate our souls such that we pursue Christ more and more deeply, inviting more pain even that we might lead God’s people deeper and further into His authentic calling and love. We must study, and practice and be on our knees more with our faces fixed on Jesus.
I’m in agreement with you, Mike. Ultimately, the bar is set so low for my generation. There is hardly any challenge or confrontation for us to get into the Scriptures and take them to heart, to spend intentional time in prayer for hours throughout the week, to have a rhythmic life rooted in the Spiritual Disciplines of fasting, silence, solitude, evangelism, worship, charity, meditation, and practicing the presence. Instead, we’ve just been told to be a people with good morals. The cross is forgotten, God is the eternal vending machine, and the gospel looks a lot like the “American dream”. It’s sick and pathetic. Do away with the Americanized youth group and start being the church.
I’ve also noticed that the youth who are filled with compassion for others end up leaving the church to join the peace corps or some other organization. It’d be awesome if instead they were raised up to be missionaries and sent out into the world of darkness to bring the light of Christ. I think that’s another failure.
I can only speak to half the population of young people, but a major issue is that men have abdicated their responsibility to teach their sons what it is to be men of God. It is OUR responsibility to teach them, to model for them, to encourage them to be the next generation of men – not the church’s, not their mother’s, and certainly not society’s.
I agree with Evonne. It’s important to remember that not all people who leave the church have left the Church. I for one, left a church but am still a member of the Church. I was an over-churched kid and an over-churched young adult.
I love the verse that says, ‘Where one or two are gathered together in my name…’ That means every time I “talk God” with a fellow follower, I’m at Church.
I also agree that the statistics should stop. In my experience and in talking to other people who are “churched-out,” the “great Exodus” is greatly attributed to the judgmental attitudes. It’s like what Ghandi said, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.” Sure, being Christlike is incredibly hard, something I will never achieve. But the two things I strive for the most in an attempt to be like Christ are: love and servanthood. That’s what He did.
If those who found these statistics would sit down with those who “left” and intentionally get to know them rather than have them answer a multiple choice quiz regarding their reasons, they would probably find that their quiz is inaccurate. I say this because the reasons above are NOT the reasons my friends (and myself) who are part of the the “Great Exodus” have “left the church.”
Again, in my experience with these people (understanding through “effort and intention and some excavation” as Evonne said), the Exodus has a lot to do with the leadership not training the lay people in servant leadership. Often times, the leaders aren’t acting as servants, just as leaders. Also, as churched kids, we’ve seen drama. I’ve even sit in on a “church body meeting” regarding some drama in the church. I was sitting with other teenagers and ALL of us were appalled at how the adults were speaking to each other being cruel to each other. We just didn’t have the guts to get up and reprimand our elders.
The fact that we all have chosen to impact each other and be intentionally involved in each others’ lives has allowed to us to excavate and be together “in His name.” And every time we get together and have intentional conversations in His name, we are at Church. We just aren’t in a designated building with the Cross hanging on the wall in the front of an auditorium. We may even be drinking a beer. Now, that’s taboo.
Mike, i am glad to see someone realizing this issue. I can only speak for myself but i am totally disenchanted with church . i have been deeply, deeply hurt and disappointed with leaders too many times and my last ditch attempt at being a part of church ended with me being a doormat to a bunch of bullies who expect grace from me but will never own up to problems they are causing or areas where they are wrong. Expecting grace without showing integrity isnt ok. At age 21 I literally feel sick at the thought of going to church because I have been totally used up by too many church people so they can achieve their own agenda. I dont know why other young adults are done…but i can say for me its the fact that the people dont seem to matter as much as the politics. And I dont think Jesus is ok with that. Its not about the music, how relevant the message is, or even how entertaining the youth program is…church should be a place where people can feel safe and care for each other; a true community. But until that fact is realized, my generation will keep walking away.