If you hang around long me enough, you will hear me say, “to reach the next generation, you must know who the next generation is.” This task is easier said than done.
The next generation, also known as Generation Z, the iGeneration, or the Centennials is a complex group that can be divided and appropriated into various subheadings. As it pertains to church attendance, the next generation can be classified into the unchurched, de-churched, re-churched, never churched, or found faithful to attend church.
In their book UnChristian, David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons claim that unbelievers are a set that “includes atheists, agnostics, those affiliated with a faith other than Christianity (such as Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Mormonism, and so on), and other unchurched adults who are not born-again Christians.”[1]
Lifeway’s research concludes that “more than two-thirds of young churchgoing adults in America drop out of church between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two. Thom Rainer in Essential Church says, “the church is losing this generational battle on two fronts: (1) An increasing amount of young people are deciding to live according to a secular mindset, thus dropping out of church and not returning to church as previous generations did (2) An increasing amount of young people are deciding to drop out of church and not claim the Christian faith of their parents or their grandparents.” [2]
Kinnaman categorizes generational dropouts into three groups: (1) Nomads (2) Prodigals (3) Exiles.[3] Kinnaman describes nomads as those who walk away from church engagement but still consider themselves Christian. Prodigals are those who lose their faith, describing themselves as “no longer Christian.” Exiles are still involved in their Christian faith but feel stuck or lost between culture and the church.
What possible explanation exists for why so many young people are leaving the church today? Perhaps it is because the church has presented the next generation a false gospel. In Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling The American Church (written by Kenda Dean), Christian Smith and Melinda Denton are given credit through their National Study of Youth and Religion (NYSR) in stating that Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is “colonizing many historical religious traditions and, almost without anyone noticing, converting believers in the old faiths to its alternative religious vision of divinely underwritten personal happiness and interpersonal niceness.”[4]
Smith and Denton conclude that “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is supplanting Christianity as the dominant religion in the United States.”[5] If this takeover is happening, what are the guiding beliefs to this new religion? Dean lists these beliefs in five summary statements: (1) A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life (2) God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other as taught in the Bible and by most world religions (3) The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself (4) God is not involved in my life except when I need God to resolve a problem (5) Good people go to heaven when they die.[6]
To follow up on groundbreaking research released in SoulSearching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Teenagers, Smith wrote Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults revealing that 18-24 year-olds comprise six religious types; (1) Committed Traditionalists – no more than 15% (2) Selective Adherents – perhaps 30% (3) Spiritually Open – about 15% (4) Religious Indifferent – at least 25% (5) Religiously Disconnected – no more than 5%, and (6) Irreligious – no more than 10%. These findings show that 40% of all “emerging adults” (meaning prolonged adulthood) are clearly distanced from religion. Practically speaking, adults are not coming back to church once they marry and have kids like they once did.
Believe it or not, I am only scratching the surface of who the next generation is and how the church can reach them. This is why I am making this post into a three part series.
[1] Kinnaman and Lyons, UnChristian, 17.
[2] Rainer, Essential Church, 8.
[3] Ibid, 25.
[4] Dean, Almost Christian, 14.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.