Shocker: Young Adults Want ‘Religion’

In churches, we often hear the warning giving to youth off to college, “You’ll lose your faith in college.”  All those competing ideas about religion, philosophy, and knowledge working against everything a church has built up!  I once had an old timer in my home church tell me right before I left for seminary, “Be careful, you can lose your faith in seminary!” Is there something about education and youth that are dangerous?  Sordid stories of youth going wild in early adulthood often lead people to think that young people want nothing to do with church, God, religion or faith.

In a surprising new study, we have learned that young adults/youth actually want a life of faith and religious practices.  Duke Divinity’s Faith and Leadership blog sums up the study:

In the National Study of Youth and Religion, 72 percent of young adults said they had positive feelings about the religious tradition in which they were raised. And nearly half of the young adults in the religion panel study said they would like to attend worship services more often.

The fact that most young people have “positive feelings” towards their religious tradition and nearly half of respondents want to go to church more, should tell us something about Generation Y.

So, how can churches reach these young people?

It seems what kind of church you belong to, church size, and amount of staff play a role in retaining young people:

Among churches that have 50 or more teenagers… white evangelical congregations are substantially more likely than mainline Protestant churches to employ a full-time youth minister.

Fifty-nine percent of evangelical churches with 50-99 teens have a full-time youth minister, compared to only one-third of mainline churches with that many youth. In churches with more than 100 youth, the gap increases to 87 percent for evangelicals to 55 percent of mainline churches.

I once ministered in a church where the senior pastor who told me, “Programs, programs, programs.  Keep ’em busy.” Programs can be good, but you must have relationships that go along with programs. Sometimes, programs are not the only answer:

Some approaches attempted by denominations — seeking to attract youth by emphasizing social action programs — have little chance of success with a generation that is not particularly altruistic and has a plethora of nonreligious volunteering opportunities.

As someone who is about to leave their 20’s in a few months, I have experienced the value of quality youth “programs” but I have seen the need for something more.  Young people want to experience God, not just talk about God.  Young people need to be fully integrated into the life of a congregation… and we are not talking about one “youth Sunday” a year.  Speaking, singing, praying, reading, serving, and learning along side adults.  Faith among youth people is alive and well.

The way to encourage young people to be active in their church is to start young.  Teaching doctrine is one thing, but encouraging them and showing them that they are valued in the church is a key reason why young people will stay in a faith setting. Yes, we need to have programs for young people, but programs in their existence will not make young people flock to church.

It is a challenge to get young people involved in organized religion, but they want to be involved.  We Christians and churches have to provide a place for young people.  Youth do not want shallow expressions of acceptance.  They want real people, real faith, and a real church experience.