Christianity Today had an article by Drew Dyck entitled, “The Leavers” about how our 20 somethings are leaving Christianity in droves. Here is the run down on the numbers presented in the article:
- The number of 20 somethings who now claim no religious belief system has doubled over the last 18 years from 11% to 22%.
- Tom Rainer reported a 70% drop out rate in the college years.
- The Barna group predicted a full 80% of those raised in the church will be gone by age 29.
The sad thing is our experience tells us that these are not just numbers. These numbers represent real people who are important to someone and important to God. So they should be important to us. Last summer Donny Dillon, Eric Brown and myself presented some information on ministry to our 20s & 30s at the Spiritual Growth Workshop in Orlando. We were very prepared for the material we presented. What we weren’t as well prepared for was the Q&A that followed. Several parents who had kids who had left their faith had some hard questions they put out on the table. It was emotional. It was sensitive and while I think we handled it well from an academic and personal standpoint it was a big reminder that there is a lot of hurt people both in the church and outside the church on this issue. We have to address it. In my opinion, this is THE ISSUE in the church church right now and how we handle this will have a lot to say about our ability/inability to move forward leading to either growth or stagnation and further decline.
I want to respond to this article in a series of posts and I hope all of you will feel welcome to chime in with your thoughts, observations, and ideas on a path forward toward reaching this generation.
HT: Jerry Starling
0 Responses
I totally agree. It tells us that something is going wrong in our youth departments and the pulpits of our churches. We are failing to reach something in the “leavers” generation. I believe it is an honest dialogue on the issues effecting our world. Too much bias from the past and Pastors afraid of losing their jobs if they buck the system. As a Pastor, this may be the time for some major risk thinking and doing. If not, in a generation we will have no more church.
I hope the day when humans cast of the chain of a 5000 year old superstistion comes sooner rather than later. I don’t believe in god, I believe in people.
Jesus was a person 🙂
A close friend is going through exactly that with her 20 something child.
Sorry to hear that. I pray God will help reconcile that.