People are becoming unchurched more than ever before.
A new study, conducted by San Diego State University professor Jean M. Twenge, shows that the number of Americans who pray or profess a belief in God hit “an all-time low” in 2014. The study analyzed the data collected from nearly 60,000 participants to the General Social Survey, a survey administered to American adults between 1972 and 2014. FIVE times as many adults stated that they never prayed and TWICE as many professed no theistic belief when compared with adults in the early 1980s. Society is becoming unchurched. It’s time that the church begins to look within for an explanation of why.
It should come as no surprise that this correlates with the fact that the largest growing generation, millennials, are also the most secular in recent memory and American history. Who can blame us? We’ve been presented with an antiquated church in an ever-evolving world. The eldest members of my generation remember life distinctly before and after the internet and subsequent advances in technology. We are a generation that watched access to music literally go from cassette tapes to a complete library of millions of songs in the palm of your hand. We watched the evolution of cell phones as a luxury of the rich to a basic and essential need for all. That is to say, we’ve watched the world and its societies evolve at a mind-bending pace with awe and knowledge that we are capable of changing everything we put our minds to do.
Yet we, as millennials, have been asked to believe in and accept a God concept and church that oft refuses to acknowledge the changing world around it. We, as the church, set atop our perch and crow that “God never changes” as an excuse to cleave to debunked religiosity and theology. We’re calling ourselves progressive when we choose to “love the sinner and hate the sin,” an unbiblical and non-Christ-like concept in and of itself. We portray that we worship the same God but we squabble of theological interpretation and create whole new denominations of the Christian faith over it. We worship the same God but our churches and congregations remain deeply split along color lines. We love the same God yet White Christians remain painfully silent when their brothers and sisters in Christ are painfully crushed under the weight of systemic oppression and injustice.
We were expected to fall in line with the expectations of generations past.
Instead, it was expected that a generation who has witnessed some of the greatest transformations and marvels in the history of civilization to simply fall in step with this church and our God. Millennials who refuse to do so are called selfish and entitled. As someone who is both millennial and a person of faith who is close to becoming totally unchurched, I would challenge that it’s time for the church to be like the God it claims to worship: transformative and meeting people where they are. How can we say that God never changes when the birth, life, and death of Christ transformed the entire way we approach a relationship with God? Point blank, God provisions the things that are needed to guide people at the present stage in their life.
We need to become a church that emulates the way Jesus loved. Jesus drew people to Him by listening to them because their thoughts and feelings mattered, touching their lives because he sincerely cared, breaking bread with them because his title nor communal stature undercut his humility, and treating them with dignity because he viewed them as equals. Maybe, just maybe, if we tried to be like our Christ, we could draw others to the fold again.
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What you have brought to our attention are hard truths. As a Co-pastor of a small church, with a M.S. in Psychology and a M.S. in Gerontology, I have the opportunity to observe and minister both, within the church walls and outside of the church walls. What I have concluded is that the people are the same. They both are broken, they both are hurt, both are in pain, both rejoices over what they perceive as good, they both seek refuse and strength sometimes from the same misdirection. Yes, the church is the blame for not continuing in Christ’s way of grace and faith. The church is the blame for not understanding that Christ chose the hurt to help and encourage the hurt. Let’s not make the same mistake with the Millennial generation. No matter how advance they are in today’s technology, their pain, their hurt, their need for refuge and encouragement is still the same as other generations before them. I minister to the Baby Boomers (1946-1964), Gen X (1965-1982), and Millennials (1982-2004), because what the church overlooked in their efforts to be a spiritual base is not understanding that this was a people problem not only sin problem. The churches focus became on one cohort of people and not on ALL people. When the church talks of God not changing it should be in reference to God’s Spiritual order. The physical and emotional nature will change, it will decay even with all of it’s growing technical advancements, that has already been foretold. As Partners in marriage and ministry of a small congregation with a big heart, We take no offense that society has a tendency of believing that small churches should be extinct, nonetheless, those churches (people) who value all people’s worth and live by Luke 14:21…”Go quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame” will not be on media display. Yet, the small neighborhood churches that works earnestly in rebuilding, restoring, and supporting the least of them in the Millennials, Gen x, and Baby boomer has an on going challenge that must be address in a holistic approach. In my field I constantly challenge Millennials not to hold on to past excuses of unlearnt religious walls and unify through intergenerational relationships. It’s not just our prayers that has kept the church small or large in being overcomers. It’s the pray of Jesus in John 17:21 “I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one–as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.”
Let’s not repeat the errors of our past, the church (people) whose truth and love is built in Christ Jesus is a prevailing church that is seeking to draw all people to Christ Jesus. This church shall endure
Pastor, you are the type of church that needs to be more prominent whose voice and good works are unfortunately drowned out by the outrageous behavior of others. Thank you so much for stopping by to read and for your timely comment!