Leaving Church, Remix
Aug 8th, 2007 | By art rogers | Category: Church, General ChristianLifeway Research has released another study pursuing the reasons people leave church, this one focusing on those between the ages of 18 and 22. The overall fallout is that those that are really ingrained in church (some aren’t) and leave, do so primarily because of a major life change. That falls in with the other studies – moving is the main reason people leave.
For the 18-22 year old crowd, there are major ramifications. First, almost all of these people go to college, so almost all of them are going to be tempted to bail on church during this time. Also, when they move, they don’t replace the church into which they were ingrained with another church. The reasons for this are not articulated, but I would like to see them. I speculate that they are not willing to invest the time and energy that it takes to develop the friendships that had them attached at the previous church, especially with all of the other time and energy demands that are on them with the life change that brought them to this in the first place.
The solution? Easy and hard. The idea: Create a place where they can feel at home and can connect without a lot of effort on their part. The solution: … Er… How do you do that? Frankly, it takes some effort on the part of people to connect themselves.
Read Lifeway’s report.
Read USA Today’s story, which includes stuff from Lifeway’s research and more from Barna at the end.
(Tongue in cheek) It’s too bad USA Today doesn’t know all the faults in Lifeway’s Research. Or is that just the PPL study?
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Being Wednesday and having the usual activities with a finance committee meeting thrown in for good measure…I am pressed for time right now. I intend on reading the articles and may comment again tomorrow. However, may I give a knee jerk reaction?
I was saved less than a year before moving off for college (junior year). I probably would have never darkened the door of a church. It was the college’s BSU (I know…now it is BCM) that not only pulled me in, gave me a new family…a Christian one at that, and begin discipling me but they also got me into a local church. It was my new friends…my new brothers and sisters in Christ that invited to the church they attended. I attended that church regularly the reminder of my days in college.
BCMs are not the final answer but they are an incredible tool for not only reaching lost college age kids but also keeping “our” kids in church. Thats my two cents anyway. More later.
All of my cohorts and fellow sinners that bailed on church whilst we were off to college were simply being good Landmarkers full in the knowledge that there was no church like home. There was no church like home. There was – hey, was that a lady with Toto on a bicycle I just saw?