Why do young people leave church?
It’s an important question, right? Why do young people leave our churches and youth groups when we invest so much into their care? It’s tragic when a young person feels they can no longer pursue their faith, when they’re already connected with other Christians. So, what are the main reasons this happens?
This has been such an important question to me for a long time, so I decided to find people who left church when they were teenagers and hear their stories.
So, for the last two-and-a-half years I’ve been speaking to ‘ex-Christian youth’. These are people who chose to leave their churches and youth groups while they were still young people. I asked them to share their stories and tell me what the key factors in their decisions were.
Some of their responses I’d expected. Many, for instance, gave me some variation of ‘it was boring and irrelevant’. However, others really took me by surprise, such as ‘your love came with too many caveats.’ That’s quite bold, right?
Now, not all young people have these same experiences of course, and many young people grow up loving their churches without any of these experiences. However, it’s still really important for us to listen and to hear what these ‘ex-Christian youth’ have said, and then think together what we could do to help all young people feel like church is a home.
I’d like to share a summary of what was said with the Church.
So, on the 4th Feb, from 9-11am, in The Garage Youth Centre, New Street, Llandudno, LL30 1NL, I’ll be presenting some of these findings and leading a conversation about what we could do.
If you’re interested in coming along (spaces are limited), please email llandudnoyfc@gmail.com.
Feel free to share this with pastors, elders, youth workers, parents, volunteers… whoever you feel might be interested.
All the best!
