USAToday has reported on some just released data on Millenials and their spiritual views. This data will be part of a forthcoming book from Thom and Jess Rainer, called The Millennials. The USAToday story is on their front page and has already lead to some aggressive discussions (moving toward 1000 comments since this morning) in the comment section. The story cites Thom Rainer and Collin Hansen and they do a good job presenting the data-- I used their graphics below.
Here are some excerpts from the LifeWay news release (be sure to read the entire release here):
Two-thirds of American "Millennials" - those born between 1980 and 1991 - call themselves Christian, but far fewer pray or read the Bible daily, attend weekly worship services, or hold to historical positions on the Bible and its teachings.
These are the findings from a wide-ranging August 2009 LifeWay Research study of 1,200 Millennials in the United States. The study forms the basis for the upcoming book "The Millennials: Connecting to America's Largest Generation" by Dr. Thom Rainer and his son Jess Rainer.
The study found that 65 percent of Millennials identify themselves as Christian, while 14 percent say they are atheist or agnostic, 14 percent list no religious preference, and 8 percent claim other religions...
One in four Millennials attends religious worship services once a week or more, but two out of three rarely or never visit a church, synagogue, mosque or temple...
While the survey found that American Millennials hold diverse beliefs, six out of 10 say their religious faith is very important in their lives today, and 70 percent agree (strongly or somewhat) that Christian churches are still relevant in America today.
"Millennials are the most religiously diverse generation in our culture's history," Rainer said. "Unsure of the afterlife and the life of Jesus, Millennials present the church with a great opportunity to engage them in conversations dealing with the nature of truth and its authority as God."
Thom Rainer has a helpful blog post today on the subject, pointing to a simultaneous trend of deeper commitment among many Millenials (something Collin Hansen also mentioned in the USAToday story):
Although the relative number of Christians in this generation is small, those who are Christians are more likely to have a radical commitment to the gospel than Christians in previous American generations.
Millennial Christians will not settle for business as usual in our churches. They will not be content with going through the motions, programs without a purpose, and spectator Christianity. They take their faith seriously, and they have little patience with churches that focus most of their resources on the members. These Millennials are serious about taking the gospel to the nations and to their communities.
In the midst of all the bad news, there is good news. Radical commitment from radical Christians. If a few Christians turned the world upside down in the first century, we have no reason to doubt that a few million can do it again in the twenty-first century.
You can download the actual presentation here.
Feel free to weigh in. What does this mean and what should churches do?
Posted on April 27, 2010 at 9:09 AM ~ 11 Comments
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"Radical commitment from radical Christians" is definitely good news. From a guy who has a website called RadicalCHURCHplanting.com, I couldn't agree more.
Enough of tepid, spectator Christianity. Today's millenials, I have three of them, want a faith that is real and active in the world. They don't want an ingrown church focused on its own needs. They want to change the world.
Get out of their way. Coach them. Applaud them. Channel them to the word. They are going to change the world.
"They take their faith seriously, and they have little patience with churches that focus most of their resources on the members."
If they do indeed "take their faith seriously" they will avoid swinging from one extreme to the other. The New Testment is all about balance, moderation, and judgment (i.e. Discernment - The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment).
How can you possibly concieve of a group of humans that do not view the world through the lens of their own biases and preconcieved notions? Do you think that "Millenials" are somehow so superior to the previous generations that they have not simply fallen into the same error as their predecessors?
The Missional model will ultimately fail as sure as the previous extreme models have failed. But, how can that be?? We are on a "mission from God". I guess when you have been "doing church" (I hate that phrase) for as long as I have, and if you are the least bit observant, you wil recognize the new modes as simply the same tune at a different speed.
I recently enjoyed reading "REVEAL: Where Are You?". At least Willow Creek was honest enough to publish their findings, even though they fly in the face of their preconceived ideas. One of the most interesting results of their surveys is that the more mature Christians in the church were also the most dissapointed and/or dissastisfied with the church and its mode of operations.
It's so simple. It's called disillusionment. We have been around long enough to have seen all the tricks, programs, philosophies, methods, bloviations (humble though they are), and sophistry, and we know that there is truly nothing new under the sun. I wish you would view Missiology as just that; nothing new. Besides, the Wesleys beat you to it by about 200 years.
Why do you not teach balance? Why must this be an "all-or-nothing" philosophy? I don't get it. What I do get is how it jerks the church around and ultimately bruises the Body of Christ. For that, someone will be held accountable. The church was not designed for schizophrenic change under bipolar leadership, it was designed for slow and purposeful change under mature, wise leadership. God does not change. Ever. Consider that carefully, as we are to be a mirror image of Jesus, who is a mirror image of God.
You may also want to do a study to see just how many of the churches "resources" go to staff salaries. I just don't think you will get such an enthusiastic response from a lot of mega-church preachers, you know, the ones that think that the next new "wave" will make them famous, like Rick Warren, or John Piper.
In closing, I would like to mention the actual fruits of some of this "new" philosphy. A local church placed a sign on their front lawn that read "This isn't your mother's church". How repugnant. They were right. I would not take my mother there if were the only church in town. It's probably also true that it isn't God's church, either.
Viva la "Missional"
As a church planter, just about to launch, I think that I've read everything written by Ed Stetzer. It's been hugely helpful!
"Leaders are readers" "Leaders are learners"
With so many US cities over 5 million in true population...there's a question that I am looking to answer in filtering what I read from here on.
How many people need to be surveyed for the results to be informative?
This survey was 1,200.
I'm truly looking for helpful info here..not trying to express an opinion here.
Any feedback?
Thanks!
Honestly, this type of research depresses me greatly. I know all of the arguments, yet doubt my faith more because of results like this than anything else. Reading comments at HuffPo, USAToday and the like only make it worse since they are 90% against religion, 5% toward a generic spirituality and maybe 5% pro-Christian.
The gospel has lost most of its relevance to people for some reason. We can no longer say they simply haven't heard...the reality is that they have heard it and rejected it completely.
Stan,
I did not see the word "missional" anywhere in that news report, my commentary, or the links. Please stick to the subject at hand.
Ben,
No problem with asking... but that is a very big question and too long to answer here.
The Wikipedia article on "Sampling (statistics)" would be a good place to start. But, a sample this size is intended to be a snapshot of the whole and, with its low margin of error, is a robust snapshot of the whole.
Ed
The whole deal makes me sad. We read about the decline of the church, but something inside of me wants to believe it's not true. Then stuff like this comes out and reality comes flooding back again.
In my city we've definately faced this problem. People use our name (Christian) but have no realationship with Jesus, no life change, no connection with the Holy Spirit. It creates a messy situtation by muddying the waters of conversation. The community I'm a part of has even thought of changing what we call ourselves...but that felt way to cultish and would separate us out in a very unhealthy way.
What a mess. How in the world do we fix this?
The point is that churches (and their members) need to understand the differences in worldview held by the people they are talking to. If you look at Paul's letters, he writes to the Galatians differently than the Corinthians, and to the Corinthians differently than the Philippians. His message about the Gospel doesn't change, but the way he communicates to each church is different.
We, the church today, need to be aware of the culture of those we're reaching out to so that the way we reach out AND the posture of our churches is conducive to reaching this generation. You can draw a hard line on theology, sin, and not "water down" the Gospel yet still reach people among different cultures and walks of life. Paul did. But it starts with acknowledging that young adults today are probably different in their worldview than 20 years ago.
Respectfully I would have to disagree. I don't believe the church's problem is being irrelevant. We seem to be getting into the culture of millenials just fine. 65% of them identify with our "brand." What other voice in such a diverse culture can claim such success?
The problem is many of them have no idea what joining the team means. In many ways I think we have focused too much on making our rituals and rules relative to the culture.
I'm not arguing for a stronger focus on doctrine. I'm arguing that somewhere in the midst of reaching people we lost sight of who Jesus is. We reached a lot of people, but produced very few disciples. For me the question is not "how to relate better to culture?" but "what about our current rituals and rules fails to produce disciples?"
I'm pumped about this generation - Zogby just renamed the Millenials "1st Globals" in a report he did. Obviously those of us who are passionate about the Great Commission and engaging the world see a fantastic future for the spread of the Gospel!
Very important research. Thanks for it. The most troubling finding for me is this one (taken from the news release):
"When he lived on earth, Jesus Christ was human and committed sins, like other people." Half of all Millennials agree strongly or somewhat; only 30 percent strongly disagree."
This finding alone empties the word "Christian" of its meaning. Jesus Christ, as he really was, is not the person the majority of millennials believe in. They are, therefore, not Christian in any historic/theological sense of the world.
Here is our huge responsibility and mission field. Thank God for their spiritual openness. It remains for the church to move into that openness in ways that incarnate both the love and the truth of God.
Bill Giovannetti
I am hoping the book will clarify some recent posts and quotes that seem to be contradictory.
On May 10, Thom Rainer said that only 13% of Millennials rank any type of spiritual matter important.
But in a (2009?) post that quoted you, Tobin Perry wrote,"For the most part, the theological beliefs of unchurched people in their 20s are closer to historic Christianity than the beliefs of living older generations who are unchurched":
The press release you quoted here says:
My survey says: I'm confused. I suspect that the actual data behind each statement would look like apples and oranges, but I am frankly confused about the conclusions reported so far.
Am I missing something?