November 28, 2010

Chances are that if you are in your 20s or 30s, you are not hanging
around a church. Polling is now a highly sophisticated industry, and
religious organizations are being fed some irrefutable numbers about
what is happening among their constituents.

In a single generation, the Christian church dropout rate has increased
fivefold. The Barna Group, a leading research organization focusing on
the intersection of faith and culture, says 80 percent of the young
people raised in a church will be “disengaged” before they are 30. In
the past 20 years, the number of American people who say they have no
religion has doubled and has now reached 15 percent. Those numbers are
concentrated in the under-30 population. The polling data continues to
show that a dramatic exit is taking place from American Christian
churches.

Beyond those numbers, denominations across the board are acknowledging
loss of membership, but it is worse than they are reporting. Many
churches report numbers based on baptized constituents, yet actual
Sunday morning attendance doesn’t come close to those numbers. Once
baptized, always a reportable Christian!

Simply put, denominations are no longer a reliable source of membership
information.

The mega-church movement also has flattened, with people leaving as fast
as they are recruited. The only real growth among Christians appears to
be in the home church movement in which small groups of independent
believers gather in a house to worship.

While the polling numbers are in, the debate about the reasons is only
just beginning. When a pollster asks if a person has left the Christian
Faith and a church, the answer is answered “yes” or “no.” However, when
the pollster asks “why?,” the answers become mushy and the numbers lose
their significance. Why are people leaving churches so fast?

I am not a pollster, but rather an observer of the religious scene. My
impressions are anecdotal and in no way scientific. I receive personal
responses to my columns, and I carry on conversations with a steady flow
of people by e-mail or over breakfast, lunch or coffee.

I believe we church people and clergy need to look at ourselves for at
least some of the reasons for the decline in membership. I offer three
observations:

–Churches are no longer intellectually challenging. More and more of
our young people are college-educated and in the future even more must
and will accept the challenge of post-high school education. They are
thinking people who are expanding the limits of their curiosity and
knowledge.

These young people often conclude that they know more than the person in
the pulpit and are not willing to accept the church’s rigid catechism,
an educational method that teaches the religious questions and the
correct answers. As an educational tool, catechism is outdated and
provides no challenge to students eager to question and discuss.

Ministers must re-establish themselves among the leaders of the
intellectual community.

–Churches are no longer leaders in moral and ethical discussions. Young
people have grown weary of churches that cannot get past issues such as
homosexuality and abortion.

Our new crop of church drop-outs is still very interested in
alternatives to a selfish, hedonistic society. Justice is high on their
agenda, and they are looking for opportunities for public service. Our
young people want to be involved in solving environmental problems and
in peacemaking.

By contrast, pizza parties and rock concerts – techniques that have been
used to make churches appear more relevant to the young – are not high
on the agenda of young people concerned about society’s deep-seated
problems.

In other words, too many churches are concerned about same-sex marriage
when the preacher should be talking about the unacceptability of war.

–Churches are no longer visionary. They have remained focused on saving
souls for the next life and offering rituals tied to perpetuating
theologies that no longer seem relevant to many young people. Churches
are no longer significant players in shaping the life of our
communities.

If ministers and churches will not lay out what the kingdom of God on
earth might actually look like, young people will continue to look
elsewhere for other models.

In that sense, I am less concerned about the young adults who are
leaving the churches than the churches they are leaving behind.