To Churches, From Young People

We young people are tired.

Those of us who grew up with your walls as our second childhood home no longer feel at home in your sacred space. And instead of being heard, we continue to be blamed for the decline of the American church.

I can’t speak on behalf of all young people, but many of us share similar frustrations and complaints.

Our needs have changed. The digital age has revolutionized how we receive information, as well as how we create and maintain communities.

Sunday School is no longer the only option to receive Christian education. Our families are busier as we try to keep up in a world with rising costs of living, housing shortages, and stagnant wages.

If you’ve ever been listening when surrounded by people under the age of forty, then you know our jokes that we will never get to retire are realism thinly veiled as humor. What else can we do but laugh?

We are tired.

We are tired of existing in a society with growing wealth disparities, in which we wonder if we will be able to access health care, housing or childcare. The fast-paced nature of the world often means attending, serving, and working at church for hours on a Sunday morning can be incredibly unappealing.

Contrary to the insults we are used to receiving, young people still do care about community. We care about socializing and building groups of friends. But we are more disillusioned with institutional methods.

We don’t always have ten percent to tithe. And if we do, we are skeptical of how nonprofits use our funds.

We are tired.

We are tired of attending religious spaces that preach one thing and do another. For those of us who grew up in your sanctuaries, children’s wings and classrooms, we are highly educated on the Bible.

We remember what you taught us, but many of us do not see the church acting like the Jesus we were taught to love. We heard “blessed are the poor” as megachurch pastors boarded private jets.

We were told to know the Bible for ourselves and test everything against the scriptures. But our questions and deconstruction were met with disdain or dismissal.

We learned about the sin of greed, about the camel and the eye of the needle, then watched greedy political leaders be touted as the Christian choice.

We were told to protect human life, then watched as policies created by Christian leaders determined that the lives of Palestinians, indigenous people, trans people, women and immigrants did not matter.

We suffered under the shame of purity culture, only to have religious and political leaders’ sexual allegations and crimes hushed and dismissed.

We sang, “Jesus loves the little children.” Then we grew up to learn that to some in church, the song didn’t mean black and brown babies, refugee children or disabled kids.

We learned how God made humans to be stewards of the Earth. Then we watched as our communities stopped listening to science and endorsed policies that contribute to pollution and climate change.

In conservative church spaces, we were taught to be Republicans for fiscal responsibility, protection of life, and a small federal government. We were taught this was the only Christian way to vote. The recent news shows how thoroughly this betrayal has gone.

We are so tired.

We were taught to love God with all our heart, all our soul and all our mind. But when we tried to reconcile our faith with science, we were told we had to choose.

When we tried to find a faith that could include and affirm queer people, we were told we were cherry-pickers. When we deconstructed, we were told we were sinners, doubters and Jezebels.

When we tried to receive help for our depression and anxiety, we were told we were self-centered and loved ourselves too much.

We are tired.

Many of us still want to belong. Many of us miss the pews, hymns, and sense of belonging we once cherished.

Some friends have abandoned the faith space altogether, settling for a life of vague spiritual meaning. Others fell deeper into conservative spaces, unable to reconcile the teachings of their childhood with their life experiences.

Some of us wish we could find somewhere authentic to attend, but in the end, we go nowhere. Others of us do our best to make homes in the churches where we are members.

But when we gather in the sacred spaces of our generation—coffee shops, park trails, bars, reddit threads, and front porches—we compare notes. All of us carry some sort of compromise.

We attend churches that affirm women but not gay people because that’s all that exists in our area. We switch denominations. We step back from leadership, burnt out from serving coffee at 8 a.m. on a Sunday.

We give our time because there’s no extra money in our budgets. We share that we keep silent about theological disagreements.

We are tired. And yet, some of us who keep going do so because we have a conviction, a belief in the importance of spiritual community.

So when we amble into Sunday School or Bible Study, maybe it’s not the right time to complain that the decline in the American Church is due to young people.

We are tired. So what do we need?

We need rest. We need authentic communities.

We need churches that act like Jesus. We need spiritual communities that care more about people than dogma.

We need support. We need church structures reimagined to fit the demands of our busy lives and families. We need the space to interpret scriptures in our own time and setting while also being intellectually honest.

We still need church. And the church definitely still needs us.

As religious young people, most of us never stopped believing in God or the power of community; we stopped believing in the church. We will continue to find meaning, belonging, and community, even in informal sacred spaces.

So if you really want families and young people to return to the institutional church, I suggest divesting from blame and investing in listening and reimagining.