Why Millennials are Leaving the Church and What the Church can do.

Why Young People are Leaving the Church

Jordan T. Marshall

Southeastern University

Executive Summary:

 The church is plagued with facts and statistics about how millennials, college students, and seemingly young adults as a whole are leaving by the masses. I wanted to look into why it seems that young people are leaving the church more than ever, and what we could do to fix that. There has been a surge of “seeker-sensitive” churches over the past few years that seemed to be an answer to the problem, but as we’re seeing it hasn’t fully cured the problem. What are the motivating factors behind why young adults are leaving? What are young adults looking for in church, what would get them to come to church and stay? Furthermore, what are the strategies that we have put in place already to try to combat the decline in young adult attendance at church? What are new strategies or ideas that we could employ to help us reach this younger generation. This white paper should prove useful to churches all around the world, especially in America where the majority of the research has been conducted on millennials and church. This generation will be our leaders in the future, and we need to try to reach them now instead of seemingly letting them go without batting an eye. It is my belief that millennials want to enjoy and participate in church, but with the culture they have been raised in, we as the church have done a poor job of making ourselves seem important, or even necessary altogether.

The Facts/Intro:

First and foremost, we should define the term millennials. Interestingly, the idea of what a millennial is has seen some changes recently and isn’t something we have a specific answer to yet. The Pew Research Center has recently established a cutoff date for millennials, and since they will be the main resource for our data, it would only be fitting to use their definition of a millennial. According to the Pew Research Center, millennials are anyone born between the years 1981 and 1996 (Dimock, 2017). At the time of this paper millennials are anywhere from 22-37 years old. It is important to also acknowledge that many people consider the cutoff year for millennials to be 2002 or 20004, but for the purpose of this paper we will consider it to be 1996. With this in mind, it is important to state that I am technically a millennial myself. This fact will prove to be a reason why I am so interested in this topic, and why I feel I have some credibility when it comes to speaking on behalf of millennials and how they feel.

In a survey of more than 35,000 individuals conducted in May of 2015 the Pew Research Center established that more than 1/3rd of millennials say they are unaffiliated with any faith, up 10 percent from 2007 (Burke, 2015). The Pew Research Center, I will refer to them as PRC for the remainder of this paper, categorizes this group as “No faith affiliated people.” This group made up 22.8% of the population which puts them close to the evangelical protestants at 25.4%, puts them past Catholics at 20.8% and past protestants at 14.7% (Burke, 2015). The amount of people that identify as Christians is seeing a decline in America. In 2007 the PRC found that about 78.4% of Americans consider themselves Christians, and in the research done in 2014 they found that only about 70.6% identify as Christians, a drop of almost eight percentage points in only seven years (Burke 2015). This is, in no small part, due to the number of millennials that are leaving the church and identifying themselves as unaffiliated with faith at all.

Another interesting statistic is that 85% of people born from 1928-45 call themselves Christians, these would be most millennials grandparents, and some of millennials parents (Burke 2015). Conversely, only 56% of younger millennials born from 1990-96 call themselves Christians even though about 8 out of 10 of them were raised in religious homes (Burke 2015). In another survey conducted by the PRC around the same time as the one mentioned previously, they found that, “Millennials remain far more likely to identify as religious “nones” (Lipka, 2015). About 35% of millennials don’t identify with any faith at all, which is double the number of people from the Baby Boomer generation that identify as unaffiliated, only about 17%, and triple the amount of the Silent generation at about 11% (Lipka, 2015). There is obviously a sharp increase in the amount of people who are unaffiliated with faith in the millennial generation.

In the same survey by the PRC showed the reasons why millennials say they left church. The first group said simply that, “I just don’t believe.” This group made up an overwhelming 49% of the people interviewed that said they were raised religiously (Burke 2015). The people who answered this way said things like, “learning about evolution” and “rational thought” were the things that made them stop believing (Burke 2015). It’s plausible that growing up going to school and being exposed to the world around us outside of church raises questions that the church has failed to answer. When this younger generation has grown up with questions like this and they don’t get answered, it fosters an unbelief in the entire thing.

The second answer that they often got was, “I just don’t like church” (Burke 2015). They said things like, “Religion is all about money” and “religious groups are more divisive than uniting” (Burke 2015). This is obviously a thought process that’s rooted in a lie that we have done a poor job of combatting. It would not take very much searching to find all of the good that the church has done throughout history and that they continue to do today. From founding hospitals, feeding the hungry, helping clothe the poor, and countless other amazing things, the church has much a much more positive impact on the world than negative. What’s interesting is also the number of millennials that say they disagree with the churches stance on homosexuality, sex before marriage, and other ideas that they group the entire church into. While it is no surprise that the church does not believe homosexuality, or pre-marital sex is right according to the Bible and what God has said in it, we haven’t done a good enough job of preaching acceptance, helping the younger generation to understand that just because we disagree with someone’s lifestyle does not mean that we don’t still have love for them and care for them like anyone else.

Finally, a lot of the answers were along the lines of, “I’m Spiritual but not religious” (Burke 2015). This is an answer that has come because the church has over time made itself seem unnecessary to millennials and young adults. Because of how the church has failed to answer questions like they should, and because the church hasn’t stood up for what it believes in and is seemingly drifting in the wind, millennials are pushed away. They don’t take the church seriously anymore and because of this they believe that it isn’t something they need to have in their lives in order to have a relationship with God. They have turned God into what they want Him to be. They don’t feel the need to be a part of anything organized in order to believe in God.

Previous Approaches:

           Over the past few years a lot of efforts have been made at not only reaching millennials but also at trying to keep millennials that we already have in the church. A lot of these efforts unfortunately have fallen short. This is not to say that they have no effect or that they aren’t important, but unfortunately the church has tried a lot of things to make themselves seem attractive to millennials but that is not what they want. You may or may not be familiar with seeker-sensitive churches, but that is one tactic that in my opinion has not done very much to get and keep the millennial generation in church. The point behind seeker-sensitive churches was put well in the blog by Steven Kozar in 2017. He said, “Simply put, this model of church starts with the idea that “normal” church is unattractive and can’t bring in new people, so exciting new ideas must be implemented in order to get people in the door. Once people show up for the attractive and entertaining aspects they’ll eventually hear a gospel message and they’ll accept Jesus in their hearts” (Kozar, 2017). This model of church has attracted a lot of people and helped to build very prosperous “mega-churches” but doesn’t seem to be making a lasting difference in the millennial generation. We have done things like bring in contemporary worship music, get our pastor to dress more contemporarily, and many other small things to try and make the church seem more relevant. An article from 2014 listed “6 reasons millennials aren’t at your church.” The most interesting one that I saw was that the church isn’t online (ERLC, 2014). Like this article and many others, people seem to believe that making the church seem more relevant by creating social media accounts for it, getting a cool band, serving coffee and making services shorter is the answer. Unfortunately, thousands of churches around America have adopted all of these strategies to no avail, church done this way has become the normal in most areas, and it’s not making a difference to millennials.

New Findings:

           This section, since I am a millennial myself, will be comprised of my personal opinions formed from my own experiences and the experiences of my peers, and from facts and data gathered about millennials. In 2012 over 80% of millennials gave a financial donation to an organization, millennials use technology more than any other generation and 4 out of 10 Christian millennials say that they have fact checked sermons, more than 40 percent of adult millennials are non-white, which is the highest number of any generation so far, and millennials care about community (ERLC, 2013, 2014). I said all of that to say that millennials care less about lights, cameras, cool bands, and short services than they do about feeling like they are truly learning something useful, are a part of something bigger than themselves, and are a part of a loving and caring community. Millennials, myself included, crave authenticity. One study shows that nearly 70% of full-time youth ministers have no theological education (Burke 2015). Is it possible that millennials are getting bored in church? Is it possible that millennials aren’t hearing anything new or challenging in church? Millennials are used to church being done the “cool” way, and it isn’t cutting it. I like to think of churches trying their best to seem welcoming and fun is like a realtor setting up an open house and advertising free food and drinks for everyone who attends. The house may be staged perfectly, the beverages cold and refreshing, the food filling and satisfying, but more often than not the realtor will be surrounded by people coming for food and drinks rather than serious potential home buyers. The church can fill itself with attendees through shallow strategies focused on seeming relevant, but just like the realtor in my analogy, they won’t accomplish anything meaningful, and are unlikely to yield any real fruit through it. The church has to learn that millennials, like generations before them, actually want to learn. They actually want to be challenged with full-proof logic and reasoning and with things that actually make sense. It isn’t all about logic and reasoning either, millennials like myself are not against faith or believing in anything and are likely to believe in things if they are presented well. The fact of the matter is that genuine, heart-felt, passionate worship and doctrinally sound, loving, and real preaching are what sets the church apart from other social gatherings. If we miss those two aspects, then we are no different than a bar with a live band filled with cool people with good drinks and food. Millennials have no reason to come to church if they feel that they can get the same thing by going out with friends and watching a few motivational speeches online.  

Conclusion:

           The statistics about millennials and the church can seem daunting. Millennials are leaving the church in droves regardless of their upbringing and we’re seemingly losing the battle of getting and keeping them in church. The church has employed countless tactics and strategies at getting millennials to stay in church and they are falling short. We are going about it the wrong way, believing that the answer is to try our best to appeal to the culture and seem relevant when we really just need to stick to our guns and buckle down on what we know and believe. Millennials don’t feel like they are learning anything new in church. They have so many unanswered questions about life and the world around us and the church clams up and shuts its mouth when these questions are asked. The sad thing is we have the answers, but we are just too frightened to give them. We have put the importance of the gospel on the backburner and forgotten about the life-altering, mind-boggling things that happen when you come to know Jesus. We no longer place much importance on having a strong personal relationship with Christ. We don’t teach how we are supposed to live in a world where it seems like everything that is happen is in opposition to what the church teaches. We have to begin to show that we care, that we understand, and that most importantly the church has answers. The church is supposed to be a light in this world, we are supposed to be in the world but not of it, and we are supposed to show what it is like and that it is possible to be a strong devout Christian in this culture. There is a notion that to be a Christian and attend church faithfully means you are intolerant, insensitive, and uninterested in the world around you. We have to shift the paradigm and show the world how to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength and still live and thrive in this culture.

References

Burke, D. (2015, May 14). Millennials leaving church in droves, study says. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2015/05/12/living/pew-religion-study/index.html

Lipka, M. (2015, May 12). Millennials increasingly are driving growth of 'nones'. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/12/millennials-increasingly-are-driving-growth-of-nones/

Dimock, M. (2018, March 01). Defining generations: Where Millennials end and post-Millennials begin. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/01/defining-generations-where-millennials-end-and-post-millennials-begin/

ERLC. (2014, November 11). Simple ways your church can keep and reach Millennials. Retrieved from https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/simple-ways-your-church-can-keep-and-reach-millennials

           Kozar, S. (2017, March 08). The Seeker-Friendly, Purpose-Driven Cornucopia of False Doctrine. Retrieved May 4, 2018, from https://www.piratechristian.com/messedupchurch/2017/2/why-the-attractional-church-model-fails-to-deliver-the-true-gospel