A recent five-year study indicates that nearly 3 out every 5 young Christians disconnect from church permanently or for an extended period after age fifteen. Why? Here are 6 reasons from the George Barna five-year study:
Reason #1 – Churches seem overprotective.
Many young Christians experience Christianity as “stifling, fear-based and risk-averse.”
Reason #2 – Teens’ and twentysomethings’ experience of Christianity is shallow.
One out of every four Christian young adults said Christian faith, as they understood it, is not relevant to their lives.
Reason #3 – Churches come across as antagonistic to science.
About one out of every three polled said “Christians are too confident they know all the answers.” (35%) and about the same number said “churches are out of step with the scientific world we live in” (29%).
Reason #4 – Young Christians’ church experiences related to sexuality are often simplistic, judgmental.
Among 18- to 29-year-old Catholics, two out of five (40%) said the church’s “teachings on sexuality and birth control are out of date.”
Reason #5 – Young Christians wrestle with the exclusive nature of Christianity.
Three out of ten young Christians (29%) said “churches are afraid of the beliefs of other faiths.”
Reason #6 – The church feels unfriendly to young Christians who doubt.
Many young people feel they are not able “to ask my most pressing life questions in church” (36%) and have “significant intellectual doubts about my faith” (23%).
As one who works with university young people, has daughters in their teens, and also teaches many twenty-somethings in Christian ministry, these reasons are no surprise to me. Here’s the longer report from which this material originated.
Are you surprised? What can and should be done?