Today I had lunch with my friend Allie. I'm thankful that we've gotten together over the past few months, she's awesome. We ate at Panera Bread. Their mac and cheese (with white cheddar) is SO good. I then went to a few stores at the Avenue, a bunch of nice shops all together. One store was a GIANT jewelry store called, "Charming Charlie." Beats me why it's called that because it's a girl's store. They sepearte their jewelry (and other accessories such as scarves, hats, and purses) by color within the store. I'm allergic to metal, so I don't wear jewelry, but they had some that were just beads and I got two. I like them.
Sunday I went to my home church and there was a guest speaker. Two actually. One was a guy who runs a college ministry at my college, and then a guy a year younger than me (he's 21) who works with another church's youth group now who used to go to that church with me. They talked about how a lot of times kids were so involved at church through their youth group, and then were sent off to college with no one keeping up with them, and he said 85% of them stopped going to church, with only 15% returning years later. He said this is SUCH a critical time because it's when we're given total freedom, we begin to train for (or start) our careers, we search for and find spouses, and we form our lives. We have big dreams (because we don't have all the negatives experiences yet) and we run around without a church to guide us. True! I agree with them. I have stuck with the church, but don't know many my age who have.
Sometimes the question is....why? And once you understand the why, then you have to say, "What do we do now?" Here are my reasons why I think young adults don't go to church, or some reasons that make me not want to even though I do.
Why Young Adults Probably Don't or Don't Want To Go To Church
1. Sometimes the music is really old, very formal, or we just flat out don't like it.
2. Sometimes the sermons don't relate to us AT ALL! They might be focused towards families as a whole, parents, or very basic parts of the bible that we feel we've heard too many times. Sometimes the sermons are too long. Sometimes they don't cover what we're really searching for.
3. With college work and jobs, our free time is limited. A lot of people want to sleep in on the weekends, or take that time to spend with their significant other and/or friends
4. If there's no young adults program / bible study at the church, then we feel out of place, don't know where to grow if all the bible studies and sunday schools are for older adults, and we lose community because it's different having friends your age instead of people all older than you. It's especially hard when you were so close with a youth group and then not to have anyone to hang out with.
5. Suddenly what you believed in high school is challeneged, whether it be through college and the people you meet, or the circumstances around you that happened. It's when you start getting confused, start doubting things, start hurting because of things, and it's easy to pull away from it all when it gets to be that way
6. Sometimes we don't know where to serve in the church. When I came right out of high school I knew I wanted to help with the middle and high school group, but was too close to their age, and since I knew them all they may not have listened to me. But we feel to young to jump into other responibilities, especially not knowing how long we can comit to it with the possibility of moving, changing job schedules, etc.
7. Anyone who's parents forced them to go to church or who weren't strong in their relationship with God in high school probably just doesn't want to go anymore and doesn't see the importance of church.
8. Along with our big goals and dreams, I think a lot of young adults want more creativity and modern things in the church, such as coffee and hot choclate in the lobby of a church, switching things up in the service sometimes, videos on the screen sometimes, etc.
Second question, what do you do then? My church is currently starting up a Sun night service that will start in January for young adults with young people being "the face" of it all - the greeters, the people who make and serve the coffee in the lobby, the people who will make short videos for the advertisement. We will sometimes have tables with chairs instead of rows of chairs in the worship center / sanctuary so that people get to know each other instead of sitting all by themselves. I really hope it grows and reaches a lot of people. I've been to several big worship services for young adults that have all been great, but what's missing is the community part. You have to join small groups in order to stay. Although they're usually offered at most of the, I haven't ever gotten involved in them because of my own church schedules.
For other churches, I honestly don't know. I think it has to be a relationship thing. You have to have someone who takes the time to call people of that age, does events often even if it's just fun stuff, and builds friendships before jumping in and offering bibile studies. Even with my church, it's died down in numbers because people get married, move, have kids, change jobs, etc. that interfere with their schedule or location. I also think that in those bible studies, you have to get down to the deep questions or else they'll come away saying, "Well that was nothing new to me."
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