There is a dangerous myth in the media and popular culture from folks seeking to understand the downward trends of young people leaving churches in droves. The myth is that young people have no interest in religion or faith.
It is easy to see why people would make this assumption, but I wonder if it is true. Are we missing something?
In 2012, I was taking a Doctor of Ministry course on ministering to young adults. The course required me to interview a sample of young adults about their religious needs.
One frigid January afternoon, I set off to the local coffee shop in our Boston neighborhood with a stack of written surveys. The coffee shop was packed with folks on laptops, nursing hot drinks.
At first, I was nervous, but then, with mounting confidence, I went table to table, asking people to fill out my survey to help me with a graduate school project. This simple pitch was successful.
People talked about leaving the faith communities of their parents but embarking on their own quests. A young painter talked about studying icons. Another reflected on the way Roman Catholicism shaped his life, though he does not currently worship anywhere. A barista took a survey home for her wife, a rabbi in training.
Many thanked me for talking to them and recruited their friends for the project.
This experience is why I wonder if we are missing something. People who never darken the door of a church or synagogue may have not all turned their backs on faith, but they are turned off by organized religion.
That is a different problem. It may not be any easier, but it certainly demands a new approach.
Why? Because most of us in organized religion don’t know how to package the truths of faith in new ways.
We are experts at creating an hour of prayer and inspiration. We are good at running a traditional Bible study. But we are novices at sharing our spiritual quest with people turned off by our rituals.
We have a lot to learn.
Why is there such a disconnect? The answer may be that we are not listening to young adults. We are not engaging with them where they are.
Instead, we create programs we hope they find interesting and preach sermons we think they should like. Meanwhile, they find church life irrelevant.
Ironically, many who have turned their backs on churches attend yoga with a religious fervor. They are finding community in book groups. They are volunteering in large numbers to help others and serve impoverished populations.
What they don’t appreciate is that the Bible is actually all about peace, the kind they seek at yoga. It’s all about community, the kind they find in book groups. It’s about justice, the kind they embody in their volunteer work.
But there is a big disconnect. They do not realize that the answers to their faith questions are exactly what the Bible stories are meant to address.
I wonder if they are failing to see the relevance of scripture because we are failing to tell the stories of faith in ways they can hear.
Every day, some of the very people turned off by religion are exercising to find peace of mind. They are seeking counselors to learn how to forgive. They are looking for neighborhoods where they can find authentic community.
The Bible wrestles with these questions. Throughout the Bible, people struggle to forgive. The Ten Commandments provide a roadmap for living in community. In Jesus, we find someone full of insights about how to live with meaning and purpose.
It is all there in the Bible, the very things people are hoping to find at Yoga, Crossfit or a book group.
But who is going to see that? Who will discover how relevant the Bible is?
No one unless we make these connections and share the gift of scripture in ways that make sense for today. So, the challenge will be to tell these old stories in new and compelling ways.
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Susan Cartmell is a pastor who has served five churches in the United Church of Christ over the last four decades. Through her experience she has written two books and successfully coached preachers.
