The eCrozier

The Barna Group has done a lot of good research on Christianity, the Church, and our culture. Their 2007 publication UnChristian should particularly grab our attention. In it, they reported the attitudes that young adults, age 16-29, have about just the word “Christian,” that is, when they hear the word, what do they associate with it? Here are the results:

91% outside the church and 80% inside the church said – anti-homosexual
87% outside the church and 52% inside the church said – judgmental
85% outside the church and 47% inside the church said – hypocritical
75% outside the church and 50% inside the church said – too political
72% outside the church and 32% inside the church said – out of touch with reality
68% outside the church and 27% inside the church said – boring

Ladies and Gentlemen: we got our work cut out for us, don’t we? While the percentages for those outside the church are bad enough, what really disturbs me are the percentages of young people inside the church holding the attitudes they have! Now, I guess, we could blame young adults for holding the attitudes they hold or say that they are simply misperceiving who we are, but that still does not address the responsibility we have for how these attitudes have been acquired by young people. This age group is now twice as unlikely to be members of a church than their same age cohort was ten years ago. And this is true across denominational lines, so this is nothing particular to the Episcopal Church. Yes, even the so-called evangelical churches are seeing the same, and in many cases greater, decline.

This is a cultural phenomenon. And the only way we will reach these young people is to change the way we invite and welcome them into the church. Indeed, we are going to have to change the way we are being church if we expect this to turn around. The young people I am listening to say that want to know Jesus and what it means to follow him. They are hungry to learn of sacraments and tradition. But they are turned away by a church they see as simply against things. They want to see what they church is for. And they want to express that in music and liturgy and practice that may appear to many of us as non-traditional. Just as Martin Luther set hymn texts to popular drinking songs of his day in order to reach new people, we should explore similar strategies, that is, if we truly want, as St Paul wrote, “to win them to Christ.”

+Scott