Young People and the Church: Why They Leave and How It Could Be Prevented

     An alarming number of young adults in the U.S. today are abandoning their church roots, seemingly never to return again. This distressing trend has been studied and researched thoroughly by many, who are all asking the simple question: “Why?” Though the specific situations and personal reasons for church dropouts vary greatly, three main culprits seem to be lurking behind a large percentage of them:

1) Lack of proper discipleship from parents,
2) Lack of proper emphasis placed on the equipping of young people with a solid defense of their faith, along with the ability to articulate it,
and 3) The detrimental effects of the post-modern mindset that permeates our current culture.

It is important for us to examine these reasons for why so many young people are leaving the church, in order that today’s Christian generation might be better equipped to reach out to and disciple the younger generations in true Christian faith.

     “The vast majority of U.S. teenagers are simply not only not hostile to or rebellious against religion generally or the faith tradition of their parents specifically.  They are also quite content to believe what their parents believe - what they have been taught to believe.  In this way, for most teens, religion is taken as part of the furniture of their lives, not a big deal, just taken for granted as fine the way it is.”  (Smith 122)

     “As a result of this high degree of teenage religious conventionality, our interviews uncovered very little religious conflict between teens and their parents, other adults, or friends.  The vast majority of youth reported that they largely share their parents’ beliefs and have very little conflict with family members over religious matters.” (Smith 122)

     Why is that?  Because they agree whole-heartedly with their parents’ religious beliefs and greatly desire to make those beliefs their own?  Or is it because they do not truly have a clue what exactly it is that their parents believe, and the words and actions of the parents do not excite or arouse any curiosity in their offspring that would cause them to desire to know and better understand their parents’ belief system?  Perhaps this is not a true agreeance, but something more like a peaceful co-existence.  The parents bring up their children a certain way according to their beliefs, which thus becomes what their children view as “normal.” Teens continue to “go along and get along” (Smith 122) with this way, because it is normal for them.  The parents never bother to give an in-depth explanation as to why things are the way they are, why they choose to believe what they believe, and why it causes them to live the way they do.

     Although they submit to their parents’ faith, and claim to believe the same as their parents do, most teens that end up “leaving” their faith in the late high school/college years, never fully understood nor shared the faith of their parents.  When parents fail to bring their faith into every aspect of their family’s life, and let it permeate the discussions they have with their children (provoking them to think through the reasons for their belief), is it really surprising that they entirely abandon such a lifeless and seemingly irrelevant faith when they get out on their own?  The book, “Soul Searching” includes some portions of interviews that the author conducted with a diverse collection of young people from all over the country, questioning them about the basics of the faith they claim to hold to. Their answers were nothing short of pathetic. These young men and women were clueless concerning their supposed beliefs. How can an individual defend a faith they themselves do not comprehend?
 
   This is proof of an acute lack of discipleship, which the church is reaping the consequences of in the startling amounts of church “dropouts” today.  “‘Students who have determined in their hearts and minds to stay committed to their God (not their mother’s God or their youth ministers God) no matter what the cost, will be able to better handle the dangers of college,’ Forman added.  ‘But of the students who participated in the shallow faith during high school just because it was the “thing to do”, college has a great chance of being the breaking point for them, where they leave behind what was ‘cool’ in high school and do what is ‘cool’ in college, which probably won’t be relentlessly pursuing God with everything they know.’” (Postma 4) It seems that Christian parents are no longer taking the Lord’s command for them to heart...”Train them up in the way they should go, so that when they are old, they will not depart from them.” (Holy Bible (ESV), Proverbs 22:6).  You cannot train up a child and then send him out into this world if he does not know why he is doing things a certain way, except that it is just the way you have trained him.  He will have no basis and no conviction as to why he should stick to his training when something that looks more attractive to him comes along.  “Then they hit college, and they haven’t learned any of the reasons for making these decisions on their own, and there is no one there to take the car keys away any more.” (Postma 6)
 
   If these young adults look back and cannot remember anything that inspires and challenges them to keep the faith, then why should they bother?  “There must be proven value in church attendance, relevant preaching, time investment in young people’s lives, and family members who live out an authentic Christian faith.” (Postma 5)  If parents try to preach their theology and yet are not wholeheartedly striving to live it out in front of their family as an example, their words will lose the effectiveness they could have had.  It is the sacred job of their parents to live lives that reflect the character of God for their children to see, and hopefully make them want to imitate.  This vital component of active spiritual discipleship of children by the parents has been taken far too lightly.  Instead of taking care of both the physical and spiritual needs of their children, parents have wrongly tried to pass off all responsibility for the spiritual well-being of young people to the church.  Although not in the job description, the church has attempted to accommodate this shift in responsibilities through programs such as “youth groups.”
  
  A significant number of church dropouts also seem to be the by-product of a high illiteracy rate among many young people raised in Christian homes. Not your typical definition of illiteracy however; these young people are only illiterate when it comes to those things in which they supposedly believe.  Obviously, this can only mean that this faith they say they possess is merely outward submission to the will of their parents, not an inward submission to the will of God and desire to obey Him.  While Christian parents are so caught up in binding up their children’s behavior in such a way that they might seem presentable to the Christian community, too many times they do it at the cost of losing their children’s hearts, by neglecting to bind God’s word to their hearts and minds. Without the teaching and discipling of the heart the only things parents can expect are temporary outward results.  It should come as no surprise to them when their children get beyond the confines of the Christian environment they were raised in, and are confronted with a host of competing worldviews bombarding them from all sides that they tend to forsake their faith.  The Christian belief system these young people claimed to hold to was not their own -- it was merely an “inherited religion.” They do not know exactly what it is they supposedly believe, or why it is they believe it.  The parents have failed to “train them in the way they should go” (Holy Bible (ESV), Proverbs 22:6).

       If the Christian religion is not expounded upon, presented in an intelligent, straightforward manner so that it might be fully grasped and understood, young people cannot be expected to make a meaningful commitment or experience the internal motivation and desire to continue in the Christian faith when their parents (external motivators), are not beside them acting as a crutch.  If kids are being obedient, not lying or cheating, and attending worship services every Sunday, in order to please their parents alone, then when they leave home and parents are taken out of the equation, what is left?  Hoards of church dropouts, who feel no desire to please or worship the God to whom they were never truly introduced. “…without adults to teach the scriptures and demonstrate faithful living to our youth, biblical illiteracy and church abandonment…should come as no surprise to anyone.” (Mitchell 8)

     Possibly the most dangerous and pervasive thing drawing young people away from the church today is the worldly mindset that permeates our culture so thoroughly, summed up as "post-modern moral relativism.” This prevailing worldview is doing major damage to youth culture, constantly undermining biblical truth more and more till parents and the church are left looking at rows of empty pews and wondering, “What happened?”
Moral relativism is, at it's core, an acceptance of everything; a denial of absolute truth and an attempt to totally debunk any idea of a common morality of any kind. “This morally relativistic world poses unique challenges to the church. First, institutions proclaiming the “truth” are rejected simply by virtue of the fact that they claim to have the truth.” (Mueller 67)
     A young person, raised in a Christian home but not properly discipled in the faith and entirely inarticulate concerning what they claim to believe, faced with a world of moral relativity is easy prey for post-modernism’s attractive looking lies.  Why attend church services, if all they do is cause the world to label you as just another judgmental, Bible-thumping bigot, claiming to have the only source of truth?  My parents are not here to make me go to church, and it seems much nicer and more “tolerant” to agree that everyone can have their own truth, their own views of what is right and wrong, and their own version of God.  Our generation has turned religion into a veritable smorgasbord of “what is right for me.”  How easy for young people to fall into this trap of personalized counterfeit Christianity.  If anything is acceptable, a young person away from parental influence could easily rationalize not being a part of the church community any more, and continue on with their life guilt-free. “In a post-modern world, sin becomes a conceptual impossibility.” (Mueller 67)

     Post-modern moral relativism seeps into so many aspects of our generation before Christians seem to even realize it is there, and by the time this epidemic among the youth is discovered it often seems too late to undo the damage that has been done.  “Don’t judge” is the new mantra among teenagers today. “Haters” are frowned upon and shunned. Standing up for truth and pointing out wrong is something many young people would not dare to do in a group of their peers, for fear of being accused of political incorrectness or so-called “intolerance.”  This is how the world is training today’s young people to think.  “I won’t deny that moral relativism offers a fantastic benefits package to people who buy into it. The more you begin to believe in tolerance as our culture defines it and the more you tell yourself that there is no absolute truth, the better moral relativism begins to look, at least on the surface.  After all, its a much easier way to live.  It’s the way the world is going.  Everybody’s doing it.” (Dobson 57-58)

     What then, can be done about this very serious problem facing the church? Identifying the root of the problem is only the first step. Next there must be preventive action taken, and it will take the combined efforts of committed parents and the church to bring the next generation back to a true understanding of God’s Word. Only if parents are willing to fight for the hearts and minds of their children, willing to live out their faith in a real and relevant way, willing to apply the Scriptures to the way they go about daily life and demonstrate the effectiveness of Christ’s sacrifice in their lives by the way they deal with difficult people and situations, only then can they begin to effectively reach their children with the Gospel message.

     The church can aid parents in this God-ordained mission by better educating them on ways in which they might disciple their children, and encouraging them to do so. In a nutshell, the church needs to help Christian parents do their job, rather than attempting to do it for them. The spiritual welfare of children is the responsibility of parents, and when parents try to shirk their duties by passing them on to the church, they are in direct violation of the Word of God. Scripture teaches, “And these words that I command you shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” (Holy Bible, (ESV) Deuteronomy 6: 6-7)
           
     Parents must stress to their children that Christianity can and should be applied in all spheres of life. It cannot be viewed as an attitude that is turned on Sunday morning and turned off on Monday, just as one might put on and take off a coat. “Yet, I am convinced that as adults who are charged with discipling our young people, we must begin teaching in a deeper, more satisfying manner and then demonstrating with our lives that transformational power of the Word.” (Mitchell 8) Too often, it seems that parents live by a “do as I say” attitude, rather than “do as I do.” Everything that Christian parents do should be a reflection of God’s character. Children learn best from watching their parents, and they must learn to submit their wills to the will of their parents before they can learn proper submission to the will of God.

     If parents and the church are both doing their part to fulfill their God-given roles in the lives of Christian young people, the post-modern threat of moral relativism would almost completely cease to be an issue. When actively taught that their beliefs are founded on the inerrant, holy, and unchangeable Word of God, and that they are indeed sinners desperately in need of a Savior, the moral relativist’s false assertion that there is no such thing as absolute truth or a standard of right and wrong is effectively debunked.  A blind faith and inability to articulate their beliefs will greatly hinder a young person being faced with moral relativism’s lies; whereas a solid foundation in biblical principles and a firmly based belief system instilled in a young person and paired with the armor of God will be able to withstand the onslaught of secular society.

     Therefore, because of this obvious lack of and desperate need for strong Christian leaders who will boldly demonstrate to the next generation how a true follower of Christ relates to the world,   “…this is a rallying cry for adult disciplers to step forward to begin building this generation as ‘the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, O God of Jacob (Psalm 24:6).’”  (Mitchell 7)