Why We Are Losing Ground with Young Adults
By Marty J. Cauley
I have the amazing privilege of working with spiritually sensitive and passionate young adults from across the southeast. I am also charged with understanding why the church is losing ground with young adults. After hundreds of conversations with young adults, I have identified some common strands running through their decisions to leave the church, or at least our version of the church.
One reason is the perception that worship is passionless. This is not because young adults do not care for traditional worship or liturgy. There is actually resurgence in older forms of liturgy among young adults, but the churches they flock to for this type of experience do it very well and are clear about why they do it. Young adults just will not tolerate watered down, unexplained ritual or poor quality, half-hearted worship. This generation desires to experience God in wholly different ways than did their parents – with their hearts as well as their heads.
Young adults desire clarity in a world filled with uncertainty. The lack of a clear, unified vision for our churches is a stumbling block. We must find a way to clarify our vision and renew our commitment to making disciples and changing our world. The abandonment of our heritage’s commitment to balancing social justice with evangelism leaves us without the needed bifocal emphasis that would be most appealing to young adults.
Since their birth, this generation has been told they can change the world, and they intend to do it. But many are disgusted by what they see as the incongruity of spoken values and lived values in the church and the culture. To see a Greenpeace bumper sticker on a Suburban really bothers this generation of revolutionaries. They are also perturbed by constant political in-fighting within the denomination. The church’s tendency to make mountains out of molehills seems ridiculous to this highly practical and pragmatic generation.
Another thing that drives young adults from our doors is criticism of things of little consequence. Churches that balk at having a young person with blue hair or a pierced nose as part of their congregation are essentially assuring their absence. This generation is striving desperately to identify who they are and where they fit into community. If that accepting, loving community is not found in the local church, they will find it elsewhere. Does it really matter how many piercings or tattoos they have?
Finally, the church’s token attempts to reach young adults are actually alienating rather than attracting them. They see it as hypocritical when the church states how important their presence is but develops program for them but not with them such as “90’s style” praise services. This is a generation of “doers” and not “watchers.” They do not want to send money to missions as much as they want to be part of a missionary endeavor. They desire to put their hands where their hearts are. They also perceive the incongruity in rhetoric about wanting young adults in our churches at the same time that funding is cut for ministries with college students.
There is, however, hope. Young adult Christians can flourish in places where the focus on spiritual formation is sharp; where they can worship with complete abandon in services filled with symbolism and depth; where this generation of Myspace® users can tell their own stories of how God intersects their lives and be listened to; where they are welcomed into positions of influence and responsibility and empowered to live and lead boldly into the future; where the vision is clear; and where local mission and a global vision seek to change the world.
There are several important steps the church can take to reestablish connection with the next generation of leaders:
- Validate youth and young adult ministry as a primary calling. Those on the front lines of young adult ministry – youth workers, campus ministers, camping directors – have been made to feel that their ministry is not as important as that of other ministries. They often feel little connection and support from those who stand to benefit or suffer greatly from the fruitfulness of their endeavors in the years to come.
- Bridge the gap between church youth groups and college ministry. Pastors need to make contact with campus ministers at colleges where they are sending their youth. And these interactions must be substantive – not just completing a form. Then, the campus minister needs to take pastoral responsibility for these new members of their “flock.” The lines of communication between local churches and their college students must reinforce the importance of spiritual connectivity.
- Reinvest in ministries with college students. This may mean capital improvements to outdated facilities that have deferred maintenance due to fund shortfalls. Salaries for campus ministry must be comparable enough to be attractive to the best and brightest.
- Plant emerging churches to reach young adults. New churches are more successful than established churches in reaching young adults. These churches may require greater investment than some church plants, but the returns can be tremendous in lives changed.
The Rev. Marty Cauley (mcauley@sejumc.org) is director of Ministries with Young People for the Southeastern Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church.
Marty, you’re right on point with this one. More church leaders need to read something like this and be told why it is we are losing so many of the younger generation, and what we can do to feed their growth. Great article!
Great article Marty! Thanks for writing it - it certainly makes we want to give some serious reflection to the way we do or don’t do or poor do ministry with and for young adults in our community. Again. thanks.
Marty,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this topic. Some serious conversation needs to take place on this question; and a church stuck in a Christendom mindset seems either reluctant, uncaring, blind or simply unable to have.
I agree. Young people do not want to be a part of a condemning, ritualistic, passionless church, where members are more concerned about how they look than the condition of there hearts or who they are. I recently cut my hair into a Mohawk, and it was hilarious yet sad some of the responses I received from some of the members at the church I was attending. Jesus came so that we could be freed from the law, and I think that if being free involves a Mohawk or tattoo… then Jesus lead on.
Thanks for speaking the truth.
This is so true. I especially agree with you on bridging the disconnect between high school and college. So many youth are lost in between.
Bravo! You speak the truth, Marty. This quote got me: “Young adults just will not tolerate watered down, unexplained ritual or poor quality, half-hearted worship. This generation desires to experience God in wholly different ways than did their parents – with their hearts as well as their heads.”
The millennial or mosaic generation is wholly different from my GenX one. They literally think differently. They are more right brained…they are more savvy…they demand experiences… And what are we doing in the mainline denominations to meet their needs? NOTHING! We are trapped in doing things the way we have always done them and afraid of what the “power brokers” will say if we develop worship to be more experiential or use edgy music…if we work to deepen spirituality…if let people under the age of 50 serve in our church as lay readers or make decisions in our churches…and youth group can’t just be playtime anymore…
Yet, if we don’t do this, a whole generation will be lost and we will disobey the command to go and make disciples of all the world. How can we find a bridge between what was and what will be?
Marty,
I have heard you speak about this before. I agree completely. Mainline churches need to wake up and listen. I have served a church that did not even know the names of any youth that was not in their family.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Have you written anything else on the subject?
This should be required reading and too bad we cannot require its practice. I watch quality young leaders walk away from the institution for places where they can connect and live out the life we were a part of nurturing. I used to hear they go away only to come back. Now since we let go of young adult and campus ministry they are seeking out those places and instead of coming back - THEY ARE STAYING or MOVING ON. When did the mainline become the church of the settled?
Marty,
Thank you so much for this post! I cannot tell you how affirming it was to read it.
This is something I have been begging various levels of my own denomination to understand since I was in high school myself. Sadly, at 30, I no longer do so with the “majority” church population. On a positive note, I do find more receptivity when discussing the topic with the smaller intercultural ministries sub-group within our whole body.
Blessings and peace to you in Christ!