Religion
Related: About this forumWant millennials back in the pews? Stop trying to make church ‘cool.’
Bass reverberates through the auditorium floor as a heavily bearded worship leader pauses to invite the congregation, bathed in the light of two giant screens, to tweet using #JesusLives. The scent of freshly brewed coffee wafts in from the lobby, where you can order macchiatos and purchase mugs boasting a sleek church logo. The chairs are comfortable, and the music sounds like something from the top of the charts. At the end of the service, someone will win an iPad.
This, in the view of many churches, is what millennials like me want. And no wonder pastors think so. Church attendance has plummeted among young adults. In the United States, 59 percent of people ages 18 to 29 with a Christian background have, at some point, dropped out. According to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, among those of us who came of age around the year 2000, a solid quarter claim no religious affiliation at all, making my generation significantly more disconnected from faith than members of Generation X were at a comparable point in their lives and twice as detached as baby boomers were as young adults.
In response, many churches have sought to lure millennials back by focusing on style points: cooler bands, hipper worship, edgier programming, impressive technology. Yet while these arent inherently bad ideas and might in some cases be effective, they are not the key to drawing millennials back to God in a lasting and meaningful way. Young people dont simply want a better show. And trying to be cool might be making things worse.
...snip...
Recent research from Barna Group and the Cornerstone Knowledge Network found that 67 percent of millennials prefer a classic church over a trendy one, and 77 percent would choose a sanctuary over an auditorium. While we have yet to warm to the word traditional (only 40 percent favor it over modern), millennials exhibit an increasing aversion to exclusive, closed-minded religious communities masquerading as the hip new places in town. For a generation bombarded with advertising and sales pitches, and for whom the charge of inauthentic is as cutting an insult as any, church rebranding efforts can actually backfire, especially when young people sense that there is more emphasis on marketing Jesus than actually following Him. Millennials are not disillusioned with tradition; they are frustrated with slick or shallow expressions of religion, argues David Kinnaman, who interviewed hundreds of them for Barna Group and compiled his research in You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church . . . and Rethinking Faith.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jesus-doesnt-tweet/2015/04/30/fb07ef1a-ed01-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html
juxtaposed
(2,778 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)but there really is no evolutionary correlation to people staying religious or leaving religion.
immoderate
(20,885 posts)That's what it is.
--imm
SamKnause
(13,091 posts)in the pews.
Promethean
(468 posts)This should be easy for them. Especially since they are convinced their god and heaven and all that are real. All they have to do is point to that obvious thing we are all missing and say "See, this is a clear and unmistakable demonstration of god."
Of course they don't have that. No religion does. This is why the age of information is killing religion. They can't hide behind general ignorance anymore.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)are not leaving because it is the age of information.
They are leaving because the traditional churches don't suit their needs or address their issues.
The big change is from affiliated to non-affiliated, not religious to non-religious (though there is some change there).
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)People can find the 'spiritual thingy' however they define it, on their own quite fine without organized religion.
TlalocW
(15,379 posts)Might wanna stop hatin' on the gays.
A friend of mine went to a church like that where she lived, and I went with her (at her insistence) once because the minister had gotten a sneak peek at, "The Passion of the Christ," and was going to talk about it. Big square building with their name in large neon, bubble letters. You enter and off to the right is the children's area that you go through a tunnel that's supposed to resemble walking through a (giant) hollowed out log, and in the area is a life-sized animatronic tree with a face and two birds on its branches. I guess they're programed to give shows.
The area outside the worship area had a bookstore and then coffee and cookies (best part), and the wall that held the entrances looked like the outside of a movie theater complete with frames that had posters showing what the upcoming sermon was about.
Sermon was an auditorium basically with a rock band playing Christian rock (you're not making Christianity better - you're making rock and roll worse - Hank Hill), and plenty of large tv screens all around. The minister came out - I called him Pastor Dudebro - late 20s/early 30s in jeans and a casual button shirt cuz, "I'm just like you all, man, and I want to rap to you about the J-man" and he talked about the movie and Jesus in general and then at one point, the spotlight on him went off as the TVs switched over to a video.. of him... walking in the woods carrying a railroad tie on his shoulder, talking about Jesus carrying the cross. As he was about to walk out of frame, he got rid of the railroad tie. Now any normal person would just let it fall off his shoulder on the side it was, but not Pastor Dudebro! He hefted and threw it up over his head on to the other side as he walked (slightly swaggered) off camera. (I got a dirty look from my friend because I laughed at the machismo), and then the lights came back up, and he continue with his sermon.
She asked what I thought... I said it was... an experience.
TlalocW
cbayer
(146,218 posts)As the article points out, millenials are looking for a more authentic kind of worship that supports their values.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)And you make the assumption that they need "worship" to support their values in the first place, something for which you have absolutely no evidence. Just your need to keep religion seeming legitimate and necessary any way you can.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)The Barna Group is an evangelical Christian polling firm based in Ventura, California. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Barna_Group
Ax grinding bullshit.