Our pews aren't overflowing with young adults - what are we doing about it?

You don’t have to look at the studies to know that many churches aren’t exactly overflowing with young adults. Go to church on Sunday and look around you(1). If you need studies, here’s one by Pew Research and another one from the Barna Group. You’ll also find plenty of opinions as to why this is. “Why?” may be a good question to ask (as a scientist, it’s one of my favorites), but a better question is “What are we going to do about it?”

Rachel Held Evans has become one of my favorite bloggers and writers because she challenges us to move beyond pontification to action. She’s written in the past about why she left church and why she came back. She recently wrote about why millennials are leaving the church on CNN and in more depth on her blog. The bottom line, from her perspective, is that young adults just aren’t finding Jesus in church. They seek substance and, instead, get superficial style. Here’s an excerpt:

What millennials really want from the church is not a change in style but a change in substance.

We want an end to the culture wars. We want a truce between science and faith. We want to be known for what we stand for, not what we are against.

We want to ask questions that don’t have predetermined answers.

We want churches that emphasize an allegiance to the kingdom of God over an allegiance to a single political party or a single nation.

We want our LGBT friends to feel truly welcome in our faith communities.

We want to be challenged to live lives of holiness, not only when it comes to sex, but also when it comes to living simply, caring for the poor and oppressed, pursuing reconciliation, engaging in creation care and becoming peacemakers.

You can’t hand us a latte and then go about business as usual and expect us to stick around. We’re not leaving the church because we don’t find the cool factor there; we’re leaving the church because we don’t find Jesus there.

Like every generation before ours and every generation after, deep down, we long for Jesus.

No one is going to mistake me for a young adult, but I want the same thing. And I want a church with a solid foundation that will not only help nurture my kids’ faith, but will inspire them to be better disciples of Jesus than I am. 

While some mainline churches offer those things – here’s a response from a Presbyterian (PCUSA) pastor to Rachel Held Evans’ comments on the mainline church –why aren’t more mainline churches thriving? And, more importantly, what are we doing about it?

Rachel Held Evans writes that we need to “sit down and really talk with [young adults] about what they’re looking for and what they would like to contribute to a faith community.” It doesn’t mean that we compromise the basic foundation of our faith, but we need to strip away the baggage to get back to that foundation. In the follow-up article, she frames her message as a vision and hope:

The article wasn’t intended to be a list of demands, but rather an expression of desires, a casting of vision and an articulation of my hope for the Church. Obviously, the real work begins when we come together in community to do the hard, daily work of reconciliation, listening, serving, and worshipping in spirit and truth.

This is one area where I feel I’ve been called in the last few years. This blog – offering a forum to explore tough questions – was a start, but it could use more personal engagement and more young voices (that’s not a knock on those who regularly respond, because I’ve learned a lot from your comments). I’m excited about this fall’s adult discipleship series we’ve planned using the animate Faith and animate Bible materials. But that’s only going to work if we go beyond talking to doing. 

I’d love to hear what you think of Rachel Held Evans’ posts. Do you identify with her views about what’s missing in the church? What would you add? What would you do about it?


(1) Not every church is losing young adults and there lies hope for the future. My church is one of those that is declining in membership and I’m not sure we’re doing much about it. I don’t buy the arguments that it’s the demographics of the area or that it’s a denominational problem and we can’t do much about it. Either we passionately believe that God is at work among us and we need to share that with our neighbors or we need to get out of the way and let God work. Either way, the question stands: We’re not gaining members, so what are going to do about it?