Barna tracks spirituality of 20-somethings

 

Half of all teenagers attend a church-related service or activity in a typical week and some of those are quite avid in their faith, but a new poll by The Barna Group found that most of those teens will disengage from active spiritual activity during their 20s. Barna found that, compared to older adults, twentysomethings have significantly lower levels of church attendance, time spent alone studying and reading the Bible, volunteering to help churches, donating to churches, attending Sunday School and small groups, and using Christian media such as radio and magazines.

In fact, Barna said 61 percent of today’s young adults were churched at one point during their teen years but now are spiritually disengaged. Only 20 percent have maintained a level of spiritual activity consistent with their high school experiences.

“The current state of ministry to twentysomethings is woefully inadequate to address the spiritual needs of millions of young adults,” David Kinnaman, director of the research, said. “When and if young adults do return to churches, it is difficult to convince them that a passionate pursuit of Christ is anything more than a nice add-on to their cluttered lifestyle.”

It’s not as if twentysomethings are totally abandoning their faith, Barna noted, since 78 percent of twentysomethings say they are Christians compared with 83 percent of teenagers. They just need something to help them stay plugged into church life as they navigate the transition period from adolescence to adulthood.

“Much of the ministry to teenagers in America needs an overhaul — not because churches fail to attract significant numbers of young people, but because so much of those efforts are not creating a sustainable faith beyond high school,” Kinnaman said. “A new standard for viable youth ministry should be — not the number of attenders, the sophistication of the events, or the ‘cool’ factor of the youth group — but whether teens have the commitment, passion and resources to pursue Christ intentionally and wholeheartedly after they leave the youth ministry nest,” he added.