#1 reason why churches have lost millennials

After recently writing about misconceptions of millennials, I stumbled on study that discovered the strongest contributing factor of the millennial’s departure from churches.  The study revealed something so basic it amazing that more research is not being done.

There are groups like Barna and church trackers like Ed Stetzer who have listed several major reasons why millennials and young people are leaving churches. According to the research about 60% of young people stop going to church altogether. These studies quoted take a pretty dynamic approach looking at many factors. However, the answer to the millennial exodus is simpler and more troubling.

The Christian Century cited a report by the Association of Religion Data Archives that went under the radar. I was shocked when I read it. The study found that 1% of youth ages “15 to 17 raised by parents who attached little importance to religion were highly religious in their mid to late twenties.” Here is what else they found about millennials and young people:

In contrast, 82 percent of children raised by parents who talked about faith at home, attached great importance to their beliefs, and were active in their congregations were religiously active as young adults… One of the strongest factors associated with older teens keeping their faith as young adults was having parents who talked about religion and spirituality at home… Teens whose parents attended worship with them were especially likely to be religiously active as young adults… Parents, for better or worse, are actually the most influential pastors . . . of their children.

So much time has been spent trying to figure out the cultural reasons for millennial departure that churches have not really looked at the impact of parents. For those parents who had religion shoved down their throats in the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s, it is obvious why those older adults are disenfranchised with Christianity. This in turn has produced the, “I’ll let my kid decide for him/herself” mentality. Historically, families have handed down family traditions for thousands of years. Now, faith practices and beliefs are considered to be too indoctrinating for children.

I once spoke at a conference in New York on these troubling trends of churches. I spent about 35 minutes tracing the historical changes, surveys, trends, and impact of millennials. After I spoke, a gentleman approached me and told me he was a baby-boomer. I could not believe what he said next:

You know. It’s our fault. The baby-boomers. We let faith become an option instead of it being a part of our families. We let soccer and baseball become the dominant traditions of our families on Sunday mornings. We let go our family heritage of faith in the name of individualism.

For as much we want to think about the complicated trends and cultural reasons for millennials leaving churches, it turns out parents have the strongest influence.

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