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Pastor Matt
Pastor Matt

Why are Millennials Leaving the Church?



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Stats suggest that millennials are leaving “religion” in droves.  According to pewforum.org, only 28% of millennials attend church weekly, 38% a few times a year, and 34% never darken the door of a church each year.  In society millennials seem to get a bad reputation, but what is leading them to leave church?

One of the primary objectives of every generation of the church is to hand the faith and the church over to the next generation. Has the church failed in this objective? The Bible teaches this in Titus 2:4-5 "That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed".

So the question must be asked:  How does the church reach the next generation? Music and technology are probably the two most  things used to reach this generation. We're told that music must reflect the culture of the generation. A.W. Tozer says it best,  “Worship is no longer worship when it reflects the culture around us more than the Christ within us.” How the church wins people is how they have to keep them. 

What do millennials want? The same thing everyone is looking for. Our time. Our heart. Our attention, along with a chance to actually connect with people. That is one reason why small groups do well with Millennials. Relationship is something every church can be good at. Everyone at your church doesn't need to know everyone. But everyone needs to know someone.

While culture changes, God is the same yesterday, today and forever. We don't need to have our churches reflect entertainment and the culture to draw people to His church. Christ like love still draws people to Christ. 

Please let us know in your comments below why you feel our young people are leaving the church.

Edited by Matt Souza




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No one denies that things such as you outlined happen. it is then that you need to diligently search out a church home where you can agree with their doctrine and program.

But speaking to the issue I presented, a sixty mile radius of you is not "most everything" or "the majority". That was the statement I was speaking to.

I sincerely hope you find what you are looking for.

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On 10/26/2019 at 5:40 PM, Jim_Alaska said:

No one denies that things such as you outlined happen. it is then that you need to diligently search out a church home where you can agree with their doctrine and program.

But speaking to the issue I presented, a sixty mile radius of you is not "most everything" or "the majority". That was the statement I was speaking to.

I sincerely hope you find what you are looking for.

Thank you sir. Sunday morning I found a Missionary Baptist that is down to about ten people, most of which are related. They believe in OSAS and that repenting of sins is works. There was no altar call, and they sing the hymns. More than I had found so far. They were without a pastor for some time, and have a pastor of two months, who is within a year or two of being geriatric, but other than a a really slow sermon, seems quite good. 

They have salvation right, and have a couple that wants to go soul winning with my wife and I, and will let me set up the program. The man of the couple is just brimming for soul winning, but has no outlet. They use the KJV, but not as a church doctrine. I'll take it. 

They went to a sister church for Sunday night service in a close town. I had to walk out when a women started speaking and teaching, so I hope we can work that out with the pastor of the church we attended in the morning. That's a hard one. Another church that they call a "sister church" are baptist briders, but they didn't seem to even know the doctrine. 

They agreed when I mentioned that dispensationalism was garbage, as it pertains to salvation, and that everyone since the foundations of the world have been saved by grace and through faith. Looks like we have a church to work out of for soul winning. It was really nice not to have to hear about the Christ rejecting Jews being God's chosen people either, and I will leave that alone for the sake of the gospel. Just have to keep the main thing the main thing, and it should work out. 

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On 10/26/2019 at 12:09 PM, Paul Christian said:

In trying to find a Baptist church to attend and go soul winning from, I made the mistake of telling a pastor that I didn’t believe that the Jews were God’s chosen people, and that we are. He told me that I shouldn’t attend his church because that was their big “thing”. Their soul winning program was him doing door hangers once a month with his kids. 
I also asked him if he believed that you have to repent of your sins to be saved. He said that he believed so. I asked him if he could show me from the scriptures, and he could not. He tried to find something, but ultimately said that he wasn’t sure why he believed it, but that he did.

He was a Bible college graduate who was a youth pastor for several years, then was sent to this church as the pastor. 
 

I am just a 50 year old HVAC guy, but can show you from Genesis to Revelation why you can’t repent of your sins for salvation, and that the Jews are not God’s chosen people, and we are.

When pastors cannot defend their beliefs from the scripture, and the focus of their church is preaching about the Christ rejecting Jews in Israel as if they are the biggest concern that we should have, mellenials or no, they are dying.

Sadly, that "pastor" needs to get saved as well.  That church isn't dying, it likely never was, and certainly is not now one of Christ's New Testament Churches of the kind that Jesus started.  We see this all the time sadly.

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Pretty much all (of the few) in our church are of the millennial persuasion, so I can speak a bit on this.

I have, for instance, twin brothers, 28, who seem to love the church and the Lord, but tend to be in and out, for family events, occasionally getting caught up in a video game, working so any hours of overtime they sleep most of Sunday, spending the day working on their yard or truck. So there seems to be a certain ADHD, of sorts, that they are going so many directions they tend to just...forget. We find that often if we text and remind them of upcoming service, probably 90% of the time they make it. But they are too mindful of other things. They haven't learned to fully put God first. I am patient with them, because I see myself there, too, when I was their age. 

It is nothing new really-we must remember the Bible says that few will find the narrow path.

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Guest Rudyard

Posted

Millennials are leaving the church because they have been taught for years that the Bible is just a bunch of myths and legends. Churches have not prepared them for meeting teachers who preach humanism, evolution, etc.

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I believe the following reasons are why millennial's are leaving the Church:

1) The cost associated with being a follower of Christ is absent from Gospel presentation, easy-believism is promoted heavily in the Church today. Also, a lot of Pastors as well as Christians in general fail to confront sin while presenting the Gospel. When a person doesn't understand the cost of being a follower of Jesus as well as their sin, they don't feel the need to stay in Church.

2) The lack of discipleship in Churches. Jesus was very hands on and intentional in His discipleship and so were His apostles. Nowadays, when someone gets saved, we get them baptized, tell them to read their Bible, tell them to go to Church, clap for them, and then move on with our lives. While all of those things are true, that isn't discipleship. What every new believer needs is the discipleship of a mature believer.

I am sure some may disagree, but that has been what I have witnessed over the years. God bless!

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