Fact: demanding, liturgical churches attract youth
A common lament in many churches today is the lack of young people. It seems that many youth today can’t leave faith of their parents fast enough once they are on their own. This is true in Catholic churches and it is especially true in evangelical churches, at least according to this interesting article in the Broken Arrow Ledger entitled “Where have the Young People Gone?” Some excerpts (emphasis added):
“Nationwide polls and denominational reports are showing that the next generation is calling it quits on the traditional church. And it’s not just happening on the nominal fringe; it’s happening at the core of the faith.”
That’s the opening paragraph in a press release promoting a new book, “Already Gone,” by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer, with Todd Hillard…
Two-thirds of young adults who have grown up in evangelical churches are leaving, according to Ham and Beemer.
Nancy Mabry, youth director at St. Stephen’s United Methodist Church, agrees that evangelical churches are losing twenty-somethings, but she credits a reluctance to make any sort of commitment as the underlying cause.
If young people can’t commit to a skating party on Sunday evening until Sunday morning, they’re going to have difficulty making long-term commitments to anything else, Mabry said.
When she was in her 20s, she said “If you didn’t have a fever, you went to church. Some people say they don’t come to church because Sunday is the only day they have to spend with family. Why don’t they spend it with their family in church? Now, church is an option,” Mabry said.
What is the solution? There is a hint of it found later in the article:
There is an exception, however, according to Mabry. Traditional churches that are liturgical churches and smaller evangelical churches seem to be retaining their twenty-something members in greater numbers than larger and mega-churches.
The Rev. John Wilke, senior pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church, has read the book and said he found it to be a fascinating study.
He cited one of Luther’s writings as something for church leaders to consider: “A faith that costs nothing and demands nothing is worth nothing.”
“I think that is where the church is today. I get too many things in the mail from churches that say, ‘Come just the way you are, you don’t have to change,’” Wilke said.
“While God loves you where you are, he expects you to change. We don’t put the fear of God in our churches, we don’t have that respect. We’ve made Jesus our homeboy. He’s not our homeboy, he’s our Saviour.”
Wilke said the only church he knows of that is experiencing growth in the 20-to-29-year old age group is the Greek Orthodox Church.
“The Greek Orthodox Church is a liturgical church. Kids want to return to something different from what they get from the world. If we want to reach these kids again, we are going to have to return to what the early church was doing. We need to raise the bar,” he said.
Read that last part again: a demanding, liturgical Church is actually attracting youth!
Over the past forty years, the goal of many Catholic parishes has been to make it as easy as possible to be a Catholic so that everyone, but especially the youth, would be willing to come. There has been very little preaching about sin and repentance or about the demands the Faith puts upon you. Furthermore, the underlying assumption for many has been to make the celebration of the Mass more “relevant” to the younger generations, so that they will be more attracted to coming. However, this study shows the exact opposite has occurred: kids have rejected the easy way and instead favor churches that are more demanding and more traditionally liturgical.
Youth want to be inspired; they want to be called to something above themselves. A demanding, liturgical church naturally does this and as a result attracts youth without even explicitly trying.
This has always been my gut feeling. Although I no longer qualify as young, I know when I was making my faith my own, it was the unseen but not unheard of traditional ways that were attracting me. I created a mission for myself to find those ways.
A few years back, a local Anglican Parish hired an advertising/promo person to try to attract people to the parish. One of the products of this campaign was a sign in the local hockey arena that read “Dress casual (sic) for Church. Jesus did.”
Grammatical mistakes aside, how did they know that Jesus dressed casually for church? First, he didn’t really go to church, he went to the synagogue. My guess is that he dressed as any good Jew was supposed to dress for the event.
Last I heard, this parish was not doing any better, but became involved in the split caused by the homosexual ordination issue.
Then there are the Wondercafe internet ads produced by the United Church of Canada. I wonder just6 how successful they’ve been?
I loved what Scott Hahn said (and this may not be an exact quote) “God loves us where we are, but He loves us too much to leave us there”.
That is so often forgotten
This piggy backs with what was discussed in the NYT a few months ago: habit-wearing, tradition women’s orders are attracting more and more young girls, while liberal, feel good, social justice, “progressive” orders are dying.
A “demanding liturgical church”?…. Let me see if I understand this. A churches that hold to Traditions are seen as demanding? But “post-Vatican II spirit” churches with all their “community ministries” are seen as less demanding. I dont know, to me it would seem like a teenager being indoctrinated into what their parent’s “passionate hobbies”, or “social clubs”… would seem to be much more demanding than having to go to Mass for one hour a week…
Honestly, I think the ones deluding themselves are “progressives” who dont realize they’ve turned the churches [small C, i.e. building] and Mass from places of worship into places which are centers of Christian “fellowship”, i.e. social clubs.
What else do you call a place where the driving force to going is to “feel good” and share “fellowship”, as opposed to kneel down and honor and worship one’s King?
So, I for one am not really surprised.
{Eric, I know that the above probably doesnt speak to what you may have been trying to say. But it is what I see in the confusion that many have with why the young are turning away from a Masses that were purposefully “refashioned” to appeal to a person’s/people’s emotional nature.}
I agree with this article. I discovered the “old” Latin Mass in my late twenties and as a Roman Rite Catholic consider it to be the form of Mass par excellance. What attracted me to it was: how different it was from the ordinary… Eastward facing priest (prayers directed towards God)… the Latin (a language reserved for worship)… The prayers at the foot of the Altar (I will go in unto the Altar of God.)… It was serious and it was reverent…
If I wanted a relaxed atmosphere with casual music I would go to a bar or a coffee shop, not Church.
Two things have happened since WWII that have changed Religion forever. One is- Prosperity which has placed in the hands of the last two generations the Internet and the Cell Phone. Both of which are used in the new freedom to drink alcohol have sex at anytime and do drugs. Two is- Permissive Society which allows number one to happen and in fact finances it. The Government run schools do not teach morals and in fact they laugh at them. And we have a President who is in favor of abortion so that if his daughters make a mistake while having fun it can be erased with the taking of a life. What do they need religion for? They are having too much fun…..
Excellent, timely (for me) post. thanks.
Our pastor preaches about sin and says other priests do not preach enough about sin. We sing mainly songs from the 15th through the 19th centuries. The pastor has a Latin mass every month or so. I do not see or hear young people flocking back to the Church.
Bill,
I don’t think anyone is claiming that young people are flocking to ANY church. The sad truth is that most young people today are so deep in our post-Christian culture that they have little interest in the Church.
However, those young people that ARE interested (and there are some) are pulled not to the “relevant” churches, but instead to the demanding, liturgical, and traditional churches.
I have to say I totally disagree with this blanket article, and this coming from a youth director…in an episcopal church. We are very “liturgical” if you will. I grew up in the episcopal church and I have to say it’s not the liturgy that attracts youth…far from it. It has been alarming to see the faith (or lack thereof) in my students. And I firmly believe it is because they have grown up in a church culture (liturgical church) where the words they are saying mean nothing to them. The word relevant has taken on a bad meaning. Kind of like how republicans have taken the word “patriotic”….that if you’re not republican/conservative you’re not patriotic. It seems to me that many people in liturgical churches have morphed the word relevant to mean if a church tries to become more relevant they are becoming more “worldy”…or sinful even. The reason liturgical churches do not connect to youth is because they have totally lost the relevance. The main reason being because along the way, they have forgotten to effectively explain (stay relevant) why the liturgy is so beautiful and moving. Youth spend their whole young lives saying the words but never form meaning to them. Youth do not want to say words and prayers without meaning. The reason the “relevant”…or emerging churches (another word that has become bad) connect with younger people is because they not only explain why we say the things we do…they make a connection to the things we do and God.
It’s always good to review how we do liturgy, the “official public worship of the Church”. I am a youth choir director and confirmation catechist in Compton, Ca. This generation, with all the electronic devices available to them, is very different from previous ones. I believe that media and commercialism have the greatest effect on our youth. It is very difficult to keep them away from it. And trying to change its message, well too many businesses are making an awful lot of money pandering to youth. Hopefully parents are raising their kids to be careful and to think about what they will inevitably see and hear. If our church can, at least, be a place for them to gather safely, to experience community, we will have a chance of teaching them Truth. But, keep in mind that these kids are at the beginning of their journey and can easily be detoured. Give them an alternative to what’s out there, an alternative based on Catholic teachings, in a way that they can relate to. You can’t do that if they aren’t present and they won’t be if you don’t give them ritual AND something they can relate to. The importance of flexibility is something the USCCB has stated in their publications on liturgy. Mistakes will be made, but my 20 years of experience with liturgy in the Los Angeles area has shown me we can’t afford to lose that flexibility. The kids at our parish are hungry for community. We are providing that for them, along with ritual and Catholic teaching.
JMJ…Good comments…We don’t choose God,He calls all to his father for our sake,We choose to leave him though. We respond by becoming his children.His created have Turned against him since Adam,Eve.He never abandoned his people.Throughout His life he went Out to the people(Out,not just in the Synagogue’s,the Temple)into their cities,homes,markets,etc.)not just his Father’s house.So maybe the Bishops, Priests,The Laity should do likewise.The Good Shepard when seen was one lost,went Astray,left the other Sheep and went calling for the one that was lost.All the preaching, sermonizing,nor lectures,that lost sheep could not hear the shepard,nor hear the Sheppard,the Shepard heard it’s silent plaintif Cry(and Weeping in Dispair/Hopelessness) and went in search,giving up everything.Today’s Shepard don’t have to do all that,They could get in their nice automobiles (or used auto)a Bus or better a nice walk(maybe start at Home,than in the neighborhood where they live)and go out Among the Lost Flock, their’s more than one Ewe Lost/Abandoned(Never by Jesus) in the 20TH Century and into the 21ST Century)Priests and We,Laity also must be involved.It will Not be easy for their are many thickets and briar patches,temptations,in this sinful horrible Pasture,The WORLD.I know,I left the Catholic Church at 16 I’m 73,I’ve came Home when I was 58 and 1/2 years old,sick and dying.My Will Alone is Death!May God have Mercy on us,He sure has Blessed us,But Now he must Help.We even turned from his blessings we turn from his help we Abandon Him who’s Greatest Attribute is his Mercy. Respectfully with Love,Joseph J. Pippet
I think it is important not to set up straw men or false dichotomies here. Having a reverent, traditional liturgy doesn’t preclude explaining it to youth or even making it “relevant”, as long as by relevant you mean that you show how it can directly impact their lives more deeply than MTV or pop culture can. Youth desire things that are authentic, and nothing is more authentic than true worship.
Also, just having a traditional liturgy alone won’t bring young people in – you have to evangelize as well to bring them to that liturgy. And evangelization can take many forms, including modern ones like blogs, youtube videos, etc. But the key is that evangelization directs them to a true encounter with Jesus Christ, one which is centered on him present in Word and Sacrament in the Mass. He will then take care of the rest and keep them coming back for more. As the study showed, that will be more successful in attracting young people (and all people) to the Church than any attempts to “dumb-down” the liturgy.
[...] are a couple of outliers to this trend. One, referenced in this article, is the Greek Orthodox Church, whose membership among the young is rising. The other area of [...]
Pingback by Traditional liturgical churches attract, retain youth « A Blog on and for the Catholic Diocese of Dallas — December 21, 2009 @ 8:08 pmRelevance is the only reason anyone stays in their church, synagogue, sangha or mosque. The writer of this story loves the surveys that he almost quotes because they seem to support (or make relevant) what he already considers relevant. It is interesting that liturgy and how “demanding” a faith is (whatever that means) are the only things that he attributes youth retention to. What about other factors that can affect retention – local culture, presence of youth programs, the childhood programs that prepared those who are now young adults, how scared they were by their childhood influences, etc.
What are the outliers? Which of the programs that the author dislikes have comparable retention to the ones that he does like? Why is this so? How is retention measured? What is the sample size? What are the controls used in the survey? How is “demanding” defined? How is “liturgical” defined? What are the correlation coefficients of demanding/retained and liturgical/retained? What is the standard deviation among the churched in the measurements?
I clearly do not know the answers to these questions or the ones addressed in this article, but I have a keen nose for selective statistics and self-serving data sorting. This article is just a statement of what the author already thinks; the stats are badly used window dressing.
I’ve noticed that the same is true for other religions too. For example, Hasidic Judaism, one of the most conservative sects of Judaism, is also the fastest growing one.
Well said Rick. Mr. Sammons, are you saying the only true encounter with Christ is in Mass??? Are you saying thats the only “true” form of worship?? Because it sure sounds like you are. There’s a reason why you dont talk to youth about certain things…or that you dont talk to children about certain things. It’s because developmentally they are not fully formed. So “dumbing down” liturgy…whatever that entails, may be the best way to reach youth. The article talks about the Catholic church losing members bc it dumbed down the liturgy. That is not why they are losing members. It is because youth and young adults as a whole go to service and it does not speak to them. Yes, there are a good amount of youth who enjoy traditional worship (I have several in my youth group…actually the majority of my youth prefer traditional liturgy) but for the majority of young people it just does not speak to them.
Aesthetics is important. To a certain extent, the integrity of the Liturgy has to do with aesthetics, and proper aesthetics glorify God. I experience transcendence at Mass, and the degree to which I experience it has much to do with how God is presented to us, and how we are presented to God.
We are sensate beings, and that which pleases the senses (beauty) helps us to understand what we are experiencing during Mass. It’s Sacramental. If youth do not understand what beauty is, it is because they are not experiencing it. This is why they fall away. It is why I fell away. But I was attracted back by the majesty of the Church, and I understood this majesty to be evidence that God is with her. Help the youth to understand true beauty, and don’t allow the trappings which they pick up from the modern world to push aside the aesthetics of our higher forms of worship. Let them have their modernistic “worship services” in an auditorium; a church is for God.
Anthony,
I am saying that the Mass is the best place to encounter Christ (and note: by Mass I am speaking generally of the Eucharistic liturgies of the East and the West, even though in the East it is called the “Divine Liturgy”). The Mass is where we meet Christ most directly, both in the reading of the Sacred Scriptures and most especially in the Eucharist.
Again, we can’t set up false dichotomies. This does not mean that one cannot encounter Christ in other ways – such as through personal prayer, helping the poor, or reading the Scriptures alone. But the Mass must be the center of our relationship with Christ; as Vatican II stated, it is the “source and summit” of our Christian life. A life in Christ that does not include the Mass is lacking in a fundamental way.
You say that “dumbing down” the liturgy might be the best way to reach youth. Please show me the proof of that – this study and forty years of trying that have shown that it simply isn’t true. Young people want to feel that they are part of something greater than themselves; a reverent, traditional Mass conveys that sense; a “dumbed-down” liturgy does not.
Reaching out to youth is obviously a multi-faceted ministry. As I mentioned earlier, one cannot simply offer a more traditional, reverent liturgy and expect the kids to start showing up. But all youth ministry – and all ministry – should be directed towards an encounter with the Son of God Jesus Christ, and the central place for that encounter is the Mass. We should do everything we can to making that liturgical encounter full of awe and wonder, so that our youth will exclaim with St. Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”
There is an African saying ,”If you have not been to another man’s farm , you’ll say your father’s is the biggest” In the United kingdom ,it is an established fact(Gov. Stats. church trends) that the youth population in Church is declining,fastest amongs the lithurgal churches and the only church showing growth right accross the age divide,expecially the youth’s , is the independent, pentecostal charismatic churches.
Myself and like minded christians with pentecostal nonliturgal background are trying to reach to christians on all sides to provide the right balance the church needs regardless of methodology and draw men and women back to church, If i be lifted up, i will draw all men unto me
I was all with you until your last sentence. I totally agree with why they fall away along with yourself. I rejoice that you were brought back by God.
However, your last sentence reeked of judgement and closed-mindedness. True beauty comes in all shapes and forms. Landscape, people…worship. To say that there is only one true worship experience is wrong. If God is the god of all (and He is, Im sure we both agree with that) then why can he not be worshiped and glorified in different ways?
Back to relevance. Cosmology, geology and genetics have removed God from a central, active role in creation of the universe and humanity. This is what all faiths face. An increasing number of educated people view old ideas about afterlife as quaint, and are no longer as easily intimidated as they once were. The church/mosque/sangha/synogogue are now competing with pop culture on perceived equal footing – and most of us are losing. People are looking for personal relevance and flocking to charismatic churches and other alternatives to what they see as the “same old thing”. People are looking for something deep and personally transformative.
I agree with the author that this requires effort, time and commitment; however, the charismatics offer a quick and easy route. Hence, their popularity.
My tradition is not evangelical, so this is easy for me. We freely offer what we think is true to our core beliefs and relevant to a person living in this modern world. Evangelical faiths like Catholacism have a much more difficult path.
Sorry to misspell Catholicism. I hit the “post” button prematurely.
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Pingback by Top 10 Most Commented Posts of 2009 « Divine Life – A Blog by Eric Sammons — December 29, 2009 @ 7:01 ammy grandfather is also a baby boomer and he is also a war veteran,;’
Ya I’ve seen it over and over, churches offering the Latin Mass pre vat2 are packed to the rafters with mostly 18-40yr old people.At my local church the 10.000 or so masses in english spanish french swahili magyar ete etc on Sunday are almost totally greyheaded so 60′s and boring. No challenge,no commitment, damn little about Jesus, just love love love, touchy feel oh so good. I get that crap at my local bar.
Hilarious, John! Complaining, grousing, judging others, comparing other forms of worship to what you get in bars (I guess you speak from experience). You say this in the same breath as ‘damn little about Jesus’. If you don’t see the irony in that, then you know ‘damn little about jesus’.
Isee them in the football fields ,clubs etc .With our tired leadership and uninspiring sermons, it’s not difficult to see why.New visions new wine, for you can’t put new wine in old wine skins.It is time to invest in the energy of the youth with wisdom of the old
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