Fun facts that I HATE HEARING: “70% of young adults drop out of church never to return”. I hate hearing this for two reasons. Reason one is that it isn’t true. 70% of people drop out of church post graduation and of that 70% two-thirds of them go on a hiatus and return to church regularly later in life. That means that 46% of drop outs return and nearly 80% of high school students who attend church in high school will attend church as an adult too. The second reason I hate hearing about this because everyone wants to know why they are leaving. I hear lots of people come up with hundreds of reasons they leave and solutions to make them stay. I’m not saying that these reasons aren’t valid, but I don’t think that they the main reason. That being said, I am going to tell you why after high school I considered leaving the church and why I still want to leave most of the time.
I considered leaving the church because there is no place for me there. I’m not quite an adult, but I’m definitely not a teenager. I’m not married with kids. I don’t have a “grown-up” job. And I’m also not in high school dreaming about prom and the captain of the football team. Instead, I’m in college. I have different struggles, different peers, and different goals than anyone else in the church. Why would I go somewhere every week that wasn’t relevant to my life or that wasn’t making an effort to reach out to me and minister to me?
This is something I have considered and still consider. It is this reason that I think has young adults running from the church. I have concluded this from my own personal experiences and talking to my peers. Young adults don’t find it relevant to their lives. They feel like their is no place for them in the church. We don’t leave because you won’t listen to our difficult questions. We don’t leave because we want to find ourselves and we don’t leave because you’re fighting cultural wars against our lifestyles. We leave because the church has made it clear that we are the last on their list of priorities.
We leave because their is no place for us. Think about the average church attender. We group up in the church. First we went to nursery, then children’s ministry, then youth ministry, then we leave, then we come back when we are married or have kids of our own (and the cycle repeats with each new generation). Look at the pattern we are creating here. We focus our out reach on certain demographics of people and provide programs and things for those people. We sit around and ponder why young people are leaving the church and yet we don’t prioritize reaching this group of people. That is why the church loses young adults.
I personally believe that each church body can’t be all things for all people. Not every church has a ministry for the homeless, or for prisoners, or the military, or for recovering addicts; instead, we choose one or two and reach out to that group of people. But every church I have ever heard of has ministries for babies, children, youth, and adults/families. Every church should include ministries for college students/ young adults. That is the demographic of people we are losing, so we should provide ministries for these people.
Like I said before, college students/ young adults haven’t quite reached adulthood, but we’re also not youth. But one thing youth have in common with young adults is they want to fit in. They want to have a safe place where they can be themselves and are respected. If the church put an effort into reaching young adults then young adults wouldn’t leave the church in masses.
I didn’t leave the church. I didn’t leave because my parent’s required me to attend or I wouldn’t receive their support through college. But I also stayed because I grew up in a family that prioritized our faith and that helped equip me and made my faith my own. But I don’t want the people who stayed to be like me. I want them to stay because they want to stay.
My personal belief is this. The church as whole needs to stop researching and debating about why young adults leave and they need to start doing something to bring them back and keep them from leaving.
I once heard someone say that their are no college students or young adults in the area we are trying to reach. I call shenanigans – if you have a youth group, then during May, June, July, and August you at least have college students. And if their are college students then their are also young adults who move back home after graduation.
I still consider leaving the church because their is no place for me there, but I don’t because I believe that it is through the church body that we are called to reach the lost.
So this is my challenge to the corporate church: put down your books filled with facts and start doing something for young adults. And don’t give up because it didn’t work at first. We are stubborn because we think we’re always right – take the time to change our minds. And prepare the young adults you reach to be the next generation that will lead the church. DO SOMETHING TO REACH US.
