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If you discovered about half of the students in your church's youth ministry were going to walk away from Christ after entering college, would you do something about it? I hope so. That's not a very good retention rate.
But what percentage of Christian youth are actually leaving the church? There’s been some debate about the actual number, with some saying as little as 4% will remain Christian, while others suggest there’s virtually no exodus. Christian Smith tells us that evangelicals have been "behaving badly with statistics" and quickly dispenses with the 4% "panic-attack" stats. But can we get some idea of the percentage of youth leaving the church without being irresponsible with numbers?
These are the most recent and most cited studies that I could find:
- 88%: The Southern Baptist Convention's Family Life Council study in 2002 (unfortunately, I can't find the actual study and methodology)
- 70%: LifeWay Research study in 2007 (LifeWay also found only 35% eventually return)
- 66%: Assembly of God study (again, I can't find the actual study, only references here and there)
- 61%: "Barna study in 2006 -- "Most Twentysomethings Put Christianity on the Shelf..."
The LifeWay and Barna studies include research details. I’m no sociologist but from what I can tell, their methodology seems sounds.
Here are some related studies:
- "Spirituality in Higher Education": The Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA found that 52% of college students reported frequent church attendance the year before they entered college but only 29% continued frequent church attendance by their junior year.
- College Transition Project: The Fuller Youth Institute's current data seems "to suggest that about 40-50% of students in youth groups struggle in their faith after graduation."
- "The Religiosity Cycle": A 2002 Gallup Poll study found that church attendance “drops during the teen and young adult years.”
Conclusion: It's safe to conclude the church is losing a signficant portion of its young people for some period of time. Even if we take Barna's lower numbers and then cut 10% off to be extra conservative, we're still talking about losing half of our young people.
Is that acceptable? And if not, why are we losing them and what needs to be done?
Comments
is it because the church has little offer?
when life gets tough, when the rubber hits the road..often times post high school...the church seems like a social club.
the church is unwilling to:
talk about sex
talk about homosexuality
talk about divorce
talk about porn
talk about war/peace (except from one side)
when that is what the kids are being bombarded with and dealing with.
why stick around when out of touch pastors and preaching about tithing when Mom is an alcholic and Dads got a girl on the side.
why go when honest comments are not heard?
what church could a kid walk into a say " I MIGHT BE GAY." or "I LOVE PORN"
or "MY DAD BEATS ME" or "I GET HIGH, IN FACT I DID JUST BEFORE I CAME" with out derision and shame?
The church is not providing help, so let them leave.
maybe they can find God outside of buildings and people that push them away.
maybe one is sitting next to me in the coffee shop, a place of God.
I totally get it, Jake. Even so, I also know of dozens of churches that are the kind of honest, gritty places that would embrace the kind of kids you mentioned.
It's kind of like relationships: if you meet a couple of losers, you think the entire gene pool is tainted. But thank God not all churches are stunted and out of touch. Since Jesus transcends church flaws, I'm convinced he can reach people wherever they are, despite the hypocrisy of his self-proclaimed spokesmen.
I love that on this website alone, the communicators here are nuanced, committed Christians talking freely about the very topics you mentioned, and most of us belong to healthy churches who are reaching people with an unchanging message of hope. Thanks for the good reminder to love.
When we look at all the sins and tragedies in the world, it's easy to blame the church for lack of teaching and guidance over the youths' spiritual lives. But we need to remember that the parents need to be just as involved in their lives as the Church.
Plus, with the busyness of kids today, church usually takes a back seat, not because the church doesn't have enough going on, mind you. Some I've butted heads with are:
1) Schools give out grades, churches don't/can't, and students have grown up learning that grades take front seat to their future, or if it doesn't grade, it can't be that important.
2) After-school events (sports, clubs, etc.) promote the chance of getting a scholarship for college...attending an after-school Bible study doesn't.
And so one of the main struggles of the church is convincing youth (and parents) though these may be good for their kids' future careers and educations, such is just temporary, and their realationship with Jesus is what's most important.
Example: I used to teach martial arts. A father signed up his ADHD son, hoping we'll pound some discipline into him. But he only brought him by for 1 hour, once a week (and he sometimes missed a week), even though there were classes all week long. And his lack of advancement showed that he also didn't practice at home anything that he'd learned in class. One day, the father invited me over to the house. While there, his son was a terror! He'd hit his younger sister, throw things, write on the walls, etc., and his only means of discipline was a calm-sounding, "Son, please don't do that," or "son, I wish you wouldn't do that." So then a few months down the line, the father complains to me about how disappointed he is that though his son's taking classes there, he wasn't becoming better behaved.
Do you see the problem here? In the same manner, youth come to church for youth events maybe 1-2 times a week, even if the church has something for them all week. In fact, I've experienced parents becoming upset with their kids for spending too much time at the church (seriously!). So in the same manner, if the parents aren't participating in their youths' spiritual lives, and the youths aren't disciplining themselves spiritually (praying, reading the Bible, journaling, behavior, etc.) then the only time they're getting a dose of God is when they're at church, which we already established was rarely being visited.
And I believe that's one of the points of this blog: youth are not digging their roots down into the good soil, but instead falling along the path, thorns, and rocky ground. So when they get to college, some get trampled on and eaten by birds, some stray from the Living Water and thus dry up, and some get choked by the weeds and thorns growing around them. And the shame being pointed out is not only the minimal number of those who actually fell among the good soil, dug their roots deep, and produced a hundredfold of fruit, but the fact that the numbers of plentiful crops continue to fall.
And the point of this parable isn't that the Church (or God) didn't do their job, but how those who received the Word responded to it or held onto it in the face of (in relation to this blog) trials, new experiences, and temptations in the world, which is also the point I'm getting from the blog (and many others like it).
Brett raises an interesting question. What is an acceptable attrition rate? Do you think that God settled upon an acceptable figure for the number of souls that would be tormented in hell for all of eternity, due in part to youth pastors dropping the ball?
These statistics are understandable ... All I have to do is look on facebook to see all of my once 'Christian highschool school buds', deep into alcohol, drugs and sexual promiscuity.
Have no fear...God is working on this problem. It is very unlike me to comment on a post like this one. However, a friend of mine and I are working on creating a non-profit that will be addressing this very problem. This article is very well researched and well written. Thank you for the well written article. This is exactly the data we have been searching for to help with the creations.