At 45 years old, I am far from young. I began serving part-time in ministry at the age of 20 while pursuing my undergrad. So there are those who were teens in the youth ministries I led who are now in their upper 30’s. Maybe even a few have entered their 40’s. There are many who are married and have kids of their own now. Some of the youngest that I led are now entering their sophomore years in high school. Yet, at 45 years old I am often one of the “younger” adults in the churches I serve. Often the average age of the congregations I have led tend to be in their mid 60’s. Because of this I will often get asked, “Where are all the young people? What happened? Why are they no longer involved in the church?” As I was leading a weekly Bible study at my new church. I started here July 1st. I was asked this question again. So, I thought I would share some of my thoughts on this.

Before I share my thoughts on those questions, I want to highlight a few things. I also said these things to my Bible study…

People leave the church for a large variety of reasons. You can’t say all people have left the church because of these two or three things. Our culture and the various ages of people are too diverse to lump them all in together. Because of this, we have to look for themes that connect to one another.

It is NOT because people in their 40’s, 30’s, 20’s, or younger don’t love God. It is also not because they just want to “live in sin”.

There are far more educated and wise people out there than myself who have done extensive research on this topic. I will share what I can, but I encourage you to look for other resources as well.

Statistics show us that the highest percentage of people from the United States attended church between the years of 1955-1958.¹ Almost half of all Americans attended church on a typical Sunday morning. But, since then church attendance has continued to decline. In 2021-2023, 21% of Americans identified as having no religious affiliation, up from 9% in 2000-2003. Gallup reported that 30% of U.S. adults attended religious services weekly or nearly weekly, down from 42% two decades ago.² I can remember in the 90’s and early 2000’s. People in churches still had the mindset that many would get disconnected from the church. This happened when they left home after high school. There was this prevailing thought. Once they “settled down,” got a job, got married, and had kids, they would return to the church. This was the belief because many churches saw this happen in the 70’s, 80’s, and even in the early 90’s. Yet, this is not happening now, people are leaving the church and they are not coming back. Why is that? Once again the things I share are not groundbreaking. The things I suggest do not apply to each and every person.

1. Disconnect between Jesus and the Church

People my age and younger saw a big disconnect between what the church said they believed about Jesus, and how they actually lived. Younger generations saw churches too focused on money, power, status, and control. Yet, Jesus often pushed back and challenged those who fell in love with those things.

2. Hyper-Partisanism

Within the church we saw hyper-partisanship initially taking off in the 40’s, then a strong connection between a particular partisan party and Christianity within our country grew even more during the late 70’s with the “Moral Majority” and during the Ronald Reagan presidency. I did not become a Christian until the mid 90’s. I can remember hearing many, many times, “If you are a Christian you HAVE to vote Republican.” I want to emphasize this was in churches that were predominantly attended by white people. In that time (and still today) people are sometimes taught that the only real issues that Christians should be concerned about on the ballot are abortion and marriage. People are still being taught this today. If a candidate was not in line with those two issues, Christians were told not to vote for them. Early in my ministry days (and even back 10 years ago) I can remember close to election times. Someone would come by the churches I was leading to drop off pamphlets. The pamphlets had a republican candidate on one side and a democrat candidate on the other. Then down the pamphlet it would highlight the few issues the canvasser thought was important for Christians to focus on.

However, at least within the circles I have been a part of, people my age and younger slowly began to see this didn’t make sense. We noticed that when it came to voting for a partisan candidate, it was not so clear cut. This was true no matter what political party they were from. It was not so simple as saying, “This candidate is good, and that candidate is bad.” or “This is the candidate Christians should vote for and the other candidate they should not vote for.” We began looking at what Jesus taught. He talked about caring for the poor, the hungry, the naked, the widow, and the child. We saw things that were being neglected. We began reading the sermon on the mount and the beatitudes. We noticed that there were other issues we needed to consider when voting. Because of this, younger generations have been rejecting churches who lean too far in support of one partisan party.

3. Church Scandals and Abuse

Over the last several decades more and more church scandals have been brought to light. This has involved sexual abuse of both children and adults, embezzlement, manipulation, and more. People have experienced incredible hurt in churches from clergy and laity. This has been even more difficult. There have been many times that the abuse not only happened, but people in the churches knew about it. They did nothing or tried to gaslight people into thinking it was somehow their fault. Once again the church living in ways contrary to the ways of Jesus. This has led people to be skeptical of all religious organizations even if there was not abuse at a particular local church.

4. Exclusion

One of the things you will often hear people say is, “We are a very friendly church.” Yet, the truth is more churches tend to be friendly to those who are already a part of the church. They are often indifferent to those who are new. Without even addressing the racism, sexism, and homophobia that happens in too many churches, we too often find churches operating like a “religious country club” for insiders. These churches are not welcoming for all. Far too often churches will put on their signs, “All Are Welcome!” when really that should come with *asterisks*. The statement should read: “as long as you look like us, dress like us, vote like us, believe exactly like we do, and want the same things to happen in our church”.

5. Lack of Fit

I don’t know when the last time you have gone to a new church, but it can be incredibly difficult to find a place that you feel like you belong. Let me acknowledge a tough reality for us, in many of our mainline congregations that have been declining for some time now, it is hard for those in their 40’s and younger to go into churches and have a good amount of other people their age, going through many of the same life challenges, or personal issues. I think of a lot of the churches I have served, most of the congregants would have kids who were my age (who often were no longer connected to the church even if they were still around the area). Many of the congregants would be retired or close to retirement and dealing with significantly different things in their lives. I am all for intergenerational ministry, I think it is incredibly important! Yet, when even at my age of 45 when most of the people are 20 years older than me (and would be 30 years for a 35 year old, or 40 years for a 25 year old!) it can really be difficult to feel connected to people. It is natural for us to want to be connected with others our age. When that is not possible in the church, then it is a problem.

6. Lack of Children and Youth

You might be asking, “Dave, this is what we are asking about. How can it be part of the issue too?” I know we are wanting to know why younger adults and younger are not active in our churches, but because there is a lack of those age demographics it also keeps more from coming. I think of my own family, I have two younger kids in 3rd and 6th grade and one of the things that has been important for me is I have wanted to be in churches where there are other active and engaged children and youth. I have desired to be places where there are consistent ministries for children and teens, yet this has been a rarity at many of the churches I have ministered to, and also the churches of many of my other clergy friends. I know how important it was in my faith journey when I became a Christian in high school to have an active group of other teens and I would love for my kids to have that too. I can only speak on my experiences so let me speak directly to United Methodists on this one, having some archaic list of 20, 30, 40 children and teens that we report on our year-end reports is not the same as being active. Like many churches have a false sense of how many people are connected to their church when they have a membership list of 300 but actually have 50 people involved in the church, we do the same thing with our children and teen statistics. The high majority of the churches that I have served over the years have had a very small amount of children or teens that even show up to worship, let alone active in various ministries (as well as my clergy friends). So, it makes me think of my kids and other people’s kids and ask myself, “Why would they want to come when there are rarely others their age at the church?”

7. Lack of Willingness to Change

When churches were thriving there was often more people, so more money, which ended up equaling more church staff, and more programs/events. When the Church in America was thriving there was very little outreach that was needed, because a large portion of people just naturally went to church. Even during that time it was easy for members to want to stick to their preferred programs, events, music, etc… and if others didn’t like it then they could leave. The church could have this mindset because they knew there was a high probability that the next Sunday they would have a group of new people walk through the doors.

Yet, as time has gone on, less and less new people are walking through our doors, more people in the older demographic are beginning to pass away, which leads churches to decline numerically and financially. For many churches, this has not led them to rethink how they are doing ministry so they can be effective and fruitful today. Instead, it has led many churches to dig their proverbial heels in even more as they take on more of a mindset of scarcity. This usually ends up in a power struggle, fighting over the few people and dollars that are left. People my age and younger are not interested in being a part of churches like that.

8. Lack of Vision for the Future

This point really could tie into the previous point, but a lack of vision for the future is definitely a reason that those who are younger would not want to be a part of the church. As I shared in my previous point when a church begins to decline numerically and financially it usually ends up with the few dozen of members fighting over the crumbs that are left. When that happens, usually the long time members want to do what they can to keep their favorite projects/events/programs going for as long as possible (even if they are no longer effective or are fulfilling their purpose any longer). Yet, we must ask ourselves, “Why would someone younger be interested in that?” Too often the local church is focused on preserving the past while neglecting the present and future. I can remember numerous years ago when I was getting to know people at a church I asked them, “What is a dream you have for our church?” The quick response was, “I wish our church could be like it was in the 1980’s again.” First, this is not possible. That time has passed and no matter what we do the church cannot return to the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, or even pre-covid times. Secondly, why would that be appealing to anyone younger than 50? After the person made the comment about the 80’s someone else followed it up by adding, “Yeah, maybe it is like that movie said, “if you build it they will come” (They were referring unironically to the quote from the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams). The 80’s and the “build it and they will come” time has passed and if we want to see any fruit today in the church we have to move past that line of thinking.

9. Beliefs Don’t Align

There are other times that people’s beliefs have changed through the years. From starting in the ministry at age 20 till now at the age of 45 my own beliefs have changed! Yet, for many people they have seen their own personal views have changed, they don’t believe the same they used to when they were a part of the church, and because of that they see no reason to be connected to a place where their worldviews feel so different.

10. Questions are Not Allowed

This one ties somewhat into my previous point, but many people my age and younger did not encounter openness in the church, but instead close mindedness. When they began to question certain beliefs or differences they were quickly told, “Don’t ask that”, “That is just the way it is”, or “This is the only way to believe”, etc… Unfortunately, for many people they learned that the church was not a place they could ask questions or have doubts. They learned it was either “believe how we believe” or you’re not welcome, so they left.

Conclusion:

So many of these various reasons overlap and are connected to one another which has led to generations of people disconnected to the church. If we want to see a change we need to be honest with ourselves as the church. Why would younger generations want to be a part of the church if they see some place that doesn’t look like the person of Jesus that they preach about? Where abuse is ignored or swept under the rug? Where they are not really welcome unless they believe exactly like everyone else? Where the church is more focused on recreating the past glory days instead of living faithfully in the present? Where there is no openness to change or questions? Where there are no others their age or their kids age who are active at the church?

Instead they have found other spaces and friend groups that they can connect with, that offer support and care, where questions and doubts are welcome, and they feel like they belong. If we think as the church we can just continue to do what we have been doing and younger generations will start showing up then we are in for a very rude awakening. However, if we want to see younger generations connected to the church again, then we must take these concerns very seriously and be willing to change our methods, repent of past sins, and seek Christ so that we may be faithful today.

1. https://today.usc.edu/the-1950s-powerful-years-for-religion/#:~:text=Churches%20and%20schools%20were%20being,highest%20percentage%20in%20U.S.%20history. ↩︎
2. https://news.gallup.com/poll/248837/church-membership-down-sharply-past-two-decades.aspx#:~:text=This%20article%20compares%20church%20membership,worship%20than%20in%20the%20past. ↩︎