A recent survey gave the following as major reasons young people say they leave the Christian church. I’ve paraphrased and synthesized a bit in making this list for brevity sake, but I think I have captured the general idea of their reasons:
- Christians demonize everything outside of the church and stifle everything like movies, video games, etc.
- Church is boring and not relevant to my interests, career, etc.
- Churches are antagonistic to and out of step with science
- Church is simplistic, judgmental and out of date in teachings on sexuality and birth control.
- Church is afraid of the beliefs of others and not eclectic and accepting enough.
- The church is unfriendly to those who have doubt or questions about faith.
Sadly, I can relate to all of those things in my church experiences over the years. Every group of Christians I’ve associated has had some of these elements pop up in some fashion. I think it bears thinking about. Do we carefully consider the effect of our words and actions in dealing with other Christians? Are we inclusive of others in our churches? After all, the most important thing about Christianity is our relationships with God and the body of believers. If all we do is go sing a few songs and hear a sermon message that may not strike home and then leave, then we are missing the most important part of what church is about…worship and fellowship and the building UP of each other!
Paul said he became all things to others in order to reach them. I think he was certainly speaking in hyperbole to some extent, but the point is well made. To reach someone you must reach out…you must be reachable…and you must find some common ground...and you must find acceptance and unconditional love. I’m not sure we do that very well with youth (or anyone.) We think bringing in a guitar and some modern praise songs is all it takes -- “give ‘em a great show!” I think that is deluding ourselves completely.
Certainly, some of these reasons for leaving the church are not really good reasons at all. Teachings on sexual morality, for instance, don’t go out of date like a loaf of bread on the shelf at the store. And some video games and movies probably deserve to be demonized. I’m sure more could be said about many of these “reasons” for abandoning the church. But we must be careful that we consider these reasons and examine our behavior and our institutions closely to make sure we aren’t failing to meet legitimate needs of those who seek to find a relationship with our God and with each other.
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