Why Are So Many Young People Leaving the Church?

Jesus vs. America

Many of us are aware from our own experience that young people who grew up in the faith appear to be leaving the church in greater numbers. In this episode, we look at some of the top reasons cited by researchers who survey young adults about why they are leaving the church, and sometimes also leaving the faith. We talk about the impact that parents have on the faith of their young adult children, how the church’s elevation of political ideologies is increasingly cited as a reason young people are leaving a church, and how moving to a new town can often make it hard to re-engage with a new church. We also share some of our own observations from our years of experience working in young adult ministry, including how churches often want to have young adults attend their churches, but are often unwilling to make any of the changes that would truly engage young adults or make room for them at the table in a meaningful way. We end the episode with a description of the model of dialogical engagement that we have used for close to two decades in young adult ministry and ask why churches have an aversion to a method that has been statistically shown to have a significant impact on propelling young adults towards a resilient faith.