exodus or exile? young adults & church defection
In my current work role I have had the opportunity to speak with young adults all over the country who are committed to walking the Way of Jesus.
Many of them are part of a local church community and relish that experience.
Many are part of a local church community but feel far less of an attachment.
Many have simply given up on church altogether.
The number of young people in this third group always surprises me. Wherever I go, all across Australia, I meet them. These are young people who love Jesus and are very often passionate about the kingdom of God, but who have decided for whatever reason to cut their ties with the church, at least in its most prominent form.
Many authors have written about this phenomenon. Many pastors have mourned over it. Many church communities have aged because of it.
There is no simple answer as to why this phenomenon is ongoing, and I am not arrogant enough to think I can give such an answer in 300 words. Nonetheless this issue is worth reflecting on.
Is this widespread young adult church defection an exodus, or an exile? That is to say, is it a form of God’s liberation, or the result of rebellion?
What are the failures of the Church? What are the faults of young people?
This is something I may well reflect on in subsequent posts, but I hope that people can offer some wise thoughts of their own as we try to understand the Church in this young century.
MCA
Posted on June 26, 2012, in Church, Mission and tagged Church, Defection, Exile, Exodus, Young Adults. Bookmark the permalink. 12 Comments.
Perhaps they haven’t given up on ‘church’, just on the traditional form of the church?
There are other models. Simple church and Liquid Church are two examples.
US pollster George Barna (Revolution) has predicted on the basis of his research that in less than two decades, half of US christians will be part of non-denominational christian ‘churches’ meeting in homes, workplaces, family groupings or on the internet. Many will also retain their traditional church links, but the writing is on the wall.
Viva la revolution! : )
In light of your last post, I suspect there is some liberation involved!
But there is also, I think, a deeper cultural problem we have in sustaining any kind of binding relationships, even the most minimal kinds. Even sporting clubs are losing people!
I suspect I fit somewhere between the latter two categories, Matt. I’m passionate about Jesus and the gospel, but the experience of my local church is deeply disconnected from the reality of both the world we live in and the radical calling demanded of disciples. Like many churches it is finance focused, deeply illiberal (in the sense that it remains unaware of the post-christian world it now operates in, but feels a little threatened and isn’t sure why), anti-intellectual, highly emotional and tribal, focused on what God can do for ‘me’ and not what our responsibility is as Christians, and, most disturbingly for a ‘denomination’ built on social justice and service to the poor, not inclusive due to a focus on particularly bourgeois values (dressing ‘well’, etc). So while I love the community of people in my church, the experience of church as an institution for me is boring, insipid and completely counter to the message of the gospel.
So why do I go to church? Well because it remains a social ‘third-place’ in terms of staying in contact with those people, and attending church gives me access and status within the hierarchy of the institutional church to do subversive things and occasionally preach ‘radical ideas’ like nonviolence or the Beatitudes. It’s a means by which I have the ability to practice love for that community and be irenic towards it, rather than isolate myself and perpetuate practices and beliefs that I disagree with…
One of the biggie would be cognitive dissonance of what the mainstream church teaching says and what people do in daily life, eg. sex before marriage.
Too many reasons…
Peter says it very eloquently….
For me, as someone who is still in church but very much struggles with it, I feel very torn between loving the bride(zilla) of Christ, and giving up on her completely. The brand of Christianity that is taught in white middle-class churches today just doesn’t work. I’ve tried living, worshipping, praying, thinking, etc etc the way they teach us to, and all that happens is I end up more broken, hurt and confused than I was before. I’ve also seen churches tear people’s lives apart and leave them to put them back together on their own. It makes me wonder how long until I suffer the same fate.
I so desperately want to be part of bringing God’s kingdom to this world but at every turn I am blocked by the church, who just doesn’t want my help. Sure, I can play in the band or help out in crèche, but when it comes to life-changing, transformational ministry – they’re just not interested. The older generations seem to want to stick their heads in the sand and continue doing church in a format that worked for them 40 years ago, without realizing (a) the world has changed immensely in that time, and (b) gen x and gen y are disappearing, taking their children with them, and they aren’t coming back. What will it take for them to listen to those of us who are still there and create a new church that will draw them back?
Every so often you strike gold within the church. People who are real, who journey with you and who listen and try to understand where you’re coming from. Those are the people who keep me there.
Another thing I find intriguing (ok, frustrating) is how many people express dissatisfaction with their church, or leave their church, rather than joining one of the churches that ARE doing the things they are looking for – meeting people authentically, letting brains be kept on, integrating spirituality and justice, etc.
Fair enough if it is your local church and you’re going all Barthian about that, but for everyone else, what gives?
Part of it has to be cynicism with what they see in the modern Church – It can be a low yield investment . This is what I’m hearing all the time from people from every denomination – that they hear constantly about what the Church is going to do in the community and how you can be part of it, and so they sow in, time, money, talents, everything they have and it’s often a constant message of things we can be and places we can go, and then after a period of time where that should have taken place (ie during that period we had the people, the money and the vision) you look back years later and nothing’s happened, nothings changed, no-ones coming to follow Christ, the programs that could have been most effective have been shut down or wound down, the Church is just barely scraping by and the urban mission has come to a grinding halt – just now the wall papers a different colour and the chairs have been moved. Everyone seems to be on struggle street at the moment and it’s sad to see some really good Pastors from mainline Churches getting axed to due these financial restraints of the current model. So both Pastors and congregations are all very sad about the state of the current model.
So, my suggestion would be in terms of a bell curve, the current Church model is about to bottom out and a whole heap of new forms and functions are being built. Exciting for those building them, scary for people who are tied to the infrastructure of the current model.
Can I just add to the comment above – in this regard the Church is no different than a business that is tied to a certain model. The leaders of Churches are capable, loving, men and women of God who love their congregations and God and want to do the Kingdom work. But like a business that has been operating a certain way for a decade or more, when change comes – and it needs to come – they are tied to the structure and so are the congregation. Their income streams are tied to the structure. Their life styles are tied to the structure. So to change that means everything has to change, which is ok because when it doesn’t the people who walk are your change managers and change makers and you end up with…well, people happy with the existing disfunction ( if we believe that Churches that are in decline numerically and financially are disfunctional….). This is not the answer to the question you are asking, but it is a snapshot of a context where discontent can brew in young people who are already skittish and ready to move readily, where their ancestors were not.
Christian Piatt wrote about 4 blogs on the Red Letter Christians blog about ‘Why Young Adults Quit Church’ and also a couple on why they should come back. Don’t know if people agree with stuff he raises or not, but it might add to the conversation.
Here is a link to the first one:
http://www.redletterchristians.org/seven-reasons-why-young-adults-quit-church/
Jono
Thanks Jono – really enjoyed those articles. It’s nice to feel like I’m not the only one struggling with church.
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