RECLAIMING YOUNG ADULTS WHO DROP OUT OF CHURCH

I have been in leadership ministry all of my adult life, and all that time we have been discussing how to get young adults engaged in the church, so that they stay in the church. Some young adults would leave the church until they married and/or had children, and then would come back. Others stayed away. We have discussed how to help these individuals maintain their faith, but have never reconciled the issue. Perhaps we never will reconcile the problem, however some recent reading has refocused the issue for me.

In last November’s Christianity Today, Drew Dyck had an article titled “The Leavers.” In his opening paragraph, he describes the problem like this: " Some striking mile markers appear on the road through young adulthood: leaving for college, getting the first job and apartment, starting a career, getting married—and, for many people today, walking away from the Christian faith.”

Here are just some basic statistics that frame the issue. First, consider those who drop out of church. Thom S. Rainer and Sam S. Rainer III in their book Essential Church? state that a study of 18- to 30-year-old adults in America reveals that 70% of young adults between the ages of 18 and 22 drop out of the church. Second, there are the “Nones,” those who claim no religion. Dyke cites findings released in 2009 from the American Religious Identification Survey showing that the Nones comprise 22% of 18- to 29-year-olds, up from 11% in 1990. Seventy-three percent of Nones came from religious homes; 66% were described by the study as “de-converts.”

While there is some truth to the claim that young adults will end up coming back to the church, Dyck claims that the crisis of people leaving the faith has taken on new gravity because young adults today are dropping out at a pace that is “five to six times the historic rate.” There is also what he calls a “tectonic shift” that has occurred in the broader culture. Today’s young adults have been raised in a pluralistic, post-Christian world that leaves those who grew up in the church with a weakened faith.

Essential Church? discuss the top ten reasons that their research shows as to why church dropouts stopped attending church. They include the following: “simply wanted a break from church,” “church members seemed judgmental or hypocritical,” “moved to college and stopped attending church,” “work responsibilities prevented me from attending,” and “didn’t feel connected to the people in my church.”

The Rainer’s conclude that “Churchgoing students drop out of the church because it is not essential to their lives.” They frame the issue positively by asking, “Why do one-third of churchgoing young adult Americans stay in the church?” Their answer emerged from several years of research. “Young adults are likely to stay in the church if they see church as essential to their lives.” This conclusion grows out of their conviction and research showing that “most churches in America are doing little to become essential to the lives of their members.” This is especially true of young adults who see the church today as one option among many for their lives.

So, how do churches become essential to the lives of people? The Rainer’s suggest that the essential church has four major components that I can only summarize here:

(1) The essential church simplifies. This idea is discussed in Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger’s book Simple Church where they define a simple church as “a congregation designed around a straightforward and strategic process that moves people through the stages of spiritual growth.” In other words, the church should be built around helping people grow spiritually.

(2) The essential church deepens people’s knowledge of God’s Word. Many churches are “dumbing down” biblical teaching in order to make the church “more attractive.” The Rainer’s research shows that the church instead needs to hold to firm biblical teaching.

(3) The essential church as high expectations of its members and attendees. Low expectations result in low commitment. The Rainer’s state, “The high-expectation church expects much and, thus, receives much from its members. As a result, the church exodus is minimized.”

(4) The essential church helps its members multiply spiritually. Believers need to be engaged by the church in evangelism, missions, ministry, and church planting.

This would be a good topic for your church to explore. Finding ways to attract and retain young adults by making the church essential to their lives will also make the church essential to people of all ages. That, after all, is what we should be seeking to accomplish anyway.