At a time when two-thirds of young people stop going to church following their spiritually-active teen years, City Church San Francisco isn't using "gimmicks" or "bait-and-switch" tactics to draw the Millennial Generation.
Instead, Rev. Chuck DeGroat says the 1,700-member congregation offers authentic worship services and liturgies rooted in "the historical past, but progressive and future-oriented" too. Rev. Fred Harrell has a unique way of connecting with young people – meeting them at an existential level and addressing their intellectual questions and "deeper heart longings," DeGroat says.
Although the church only began in 1997, it is committed to the theological heritage of the Protestant Reformation as a member church of the Reformed Church in America, a denomination with roots back to the 1600s in America. Featuring a historic liturgy, the services offer a "definite structure" with confession and a weekly Eucharist.
"I think those are the kinds of things that connect with Millennials," DeGroat says. "With a time of confession, they can reflect on their lives. And with a weekly Eucharist, they can engage in a very meaningful way - in an experiential way – in the kinds of real satisfaction that Jesus gives. As I talk to Millennials in the city, they like that. They don't come for the show, but to be engaged and to engage."
The church's success in reaching out to young Americans – many of whom are gravitating to the "ancient traditions of Christianity" - comes as a report by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life found the Millennial Generation – those ages 18 to 29 - is considerably less religious than older Americans. Fully one-in-four (25 percent) are unaffiliated with any particular religious tradition or identify themselves as part of a Christian denomination. They describe their religion as "atheist," "agnostic" or "nothing in particular."
According to the survey, Millennials – who now outnumber Baby Boomers - are significantly more unaffiliated than members of Generation X were at a comparable point in their life cycle (20 percent) and twice as unaffiliated as Baby Boomers were as young adults (13 percent). About two-thirds of young people (68 percent) say they are members of a Christian denomination, compared with 81 percent of adults ages 30 and older.
But Pew researcher Allison Pond says Millennials are still fairly traditional in many religious beliefs and practices.
"For example, beliefs about life after death, the existence of heaven and hell or whether miracles occur," Pond says. "In those areas, the Millennials and older generations' beliefs are still very similar."
The Pew report found the large proportion of young adults who are unaffiliated with a religion is a result, in part, of the decision by many young people to leave the religion of their upbringing without becoming involved with a new faith. In total, nearly one-in-five adults under age 30 (18 percent) say they were raised in a religion but are now unaffiliated with any particular faith.
A large reason behind this phenomena, according to Princeton University Professor Robert Wuthnow, author of "After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion," is that today's young adults are simply marrying five to seven years later than their parents. Facing a 37 percent unemployment rate and struggling to find jobs in the teeth of a recession, many are staying in college longer, living with their parents, taking longer to decide on a career and marry and settle down.
"That actually has the biggest impact on church attendance of anything you can find," Wuthnow says. "I figured that it accounted for about 6 million fewer regular church-goers than would have been the case if marriage rates hadn't changed."
The findings are similar to studies conducted by The Barna Group. A 2006 Barna study found that despite strong levels of spiritual activity during the teen years, 61 percent of twenty-somethings disengage from active participation in the Christian faith during their young adult years – and often beyond that.
Barna President David Kinnaman says there are many reasons, including that many churches aren't providing children and teenagers with in-depth biblical teaching. Without this "depth of Scripture," youth don't get the tools they need to understand their calling and grow in their faith. Kinnaman says churches also need to do a better job of providing youth with significant relationships with adults to help them through an often difficult time in their lives.
Although many churches and youth pastors are more aware of this problem now and are taking steps to better connect with youth, Kinnaman says they only get an hour or two a week to have an impact – compared to the more than 53 hours a week youths spend with various types of media.
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation study found the average amount of time 8-18 year olds spend each day with media – television, social networking, Internet, music, video games, text-messaging, books, magazines and newspapers – has increased from 6 hours and 21 minutes in 2004 to seven hours and 38 minutes today. And because they spend so much time "media multitasking," they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into those seven-and-a-half hours.
"The church doesn't seem to provide a lot of teaching or wisdom on how technology is both an opportunity for creating a positive impact in people's lives, but also one of the things that becomes, as the Bible describes it, an idol – something that distracts us from our work in serving God," Kinnaman says. "The three important things for churches to do are to get more spiritually healthy adults involved in the youth ministry as mentors and models, teach the Bible more deeply and help students understand the pluses and minuses of technology and how to navigate the media and cultural realities more effectively."
As a 23-year-old student at The Movement, a ministry training and discipleship program at the Dream Center in Los Angeles, Cody Cressey says he sees a connection between the increasing influence of the media and the moral decline in society.
Phil Cooke, president and creative director of Cooke Pictures and author of "The Last TV Evangelist: Why the Next Generation Couldn't Care Less About Religious Media and Why It Matters," says there is no question the media has played a significant role in the fact a large number of youth identify themselves as "atheist," "agnostic" or "nothing in particular."
"As media options have exploded including more channels, different platforms, digital media, and more, we've seen 'choice' become the new god people pay allegiance to today," Cooke says. "I was thinking this afternoon about the word 'whatever.' Millennials toss that around at the end of every sentence, and it's really come to represent 'whatever you want' is what works. 'Whatever' has really become the mantra of this generation because we've lost the ability (and certainly the nerve) to actually make a moral decision about anything anymore."
Despite the study's findings that youth are less likely to identify themselves as part of a Christian denomination, Christian Smith, a professor of sociology and director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame, says youth often return to church once they get married and have children. Smith, co-author of "Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults," wrote the common wisdom that religiosity declines sharply during the young adult years is greatly exaggerated.
"Nothing is guaranteed and youth may return to the church at lower rates than in the past," Smith says. "But if people read the Pew report in alarmist terms – 'Oh no, this generation is particularly not religious and everything is changing' – I don't think that's an accurate reading of the numbers or the report."
Although belief in God is lower among young adults than among older adults, Millennials say they believe in God with absolute certainty at rates similar to those seen among Generation Xers a decade ago, the Pew report found. This suggests that some of the religious differences between younger and older Americans are not entirely generational, but result in part from people's tendency to place greater emphasis on religion as they age.
At the First United Methodist Church in Springfield, Illinois, Rev. Vince Rohn says his 1,400-member church has struggled to find effective ways to draw the younger generation to the church. The best tool, Rohn says, are small group ministries where young adults can build relationships with others.
"In small groups, young adults develop a sense of community that is often one of the biggest needs of folks in a highly mobile society," Rohn says. "It's also a place where people are much more comfortable accepting an invitation. If you are unfamiliar with a church, coming to a large gathering with 700 people can be a little intimidating at times."
Also, for the "always connected" generation – one that treats their "multi-tasking hand-held gadgets almost like a body part" – Rohn says it's important for churches to have an attractive, user-friendly Web site that allows people to connect with the church. Many churches now post sermons and other videos on their Web sites.
Despite the challenges facing his generation, Cressey says a large segment are returning to the revolutionary Christianity of the 1st century – "actually doing what the Bible says" and reaching out to the poor, homeless and those "no one wants to touch - just like Jesus did in the Bible."
Youth today, Cressey says, know the story of Jesus, have seen "The Passion of the Christ," but have often failed to see anything different in the lives of older Christians than in the rest of the world. But they are encouraged by those Christians who are "living right lives," helping the poor and sick, sharing the Good News and showing the world the "true love of Christ."
It's among these on-fire believers, Cressey says, that the new wave of revival will occur.
"I just see a great revival taking place across the country," Cressey says. "It’s like God is mobilizing this generation.... I know lots of people like myself are just going after God with all they have. There is no reason we can’t do the impossible, if it's God's will."
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