Where are our young people?

Churches grappling with a dearth of youth

By Aaron Epp | Manitoba Correspondent

WINNIPEG, MB—Ask Elisabeth Braul what she thinks of church and she'll tell you it's important. Then ask Elisabeth Braul when she last attended church regularly and she'll say four years ago.

Growing up in Calgary in a small Mennonite congregation where her mother was lead pastor, church was a key part of every week for Braul and her family.

"It was sort of our life," she says.

Because the congregation was small, everyone pitched in. Over the years, Braul taught Sunday school, played piano during worship, worked at a nearby Bible camp and led the youth group.

After graduating from high school, she moved to Winnipeg and earned a theology degree from Canadian Mennonite University. She then became the youth pastor in a Mennonite church in the city.

After her term ended, Braul says she stopped going to church, in part to take a break—working in the church can be exhausting—and in part to give the new youth pastor some space to begin his ministry. Family issues also developed that made going to church difficult.

But ultimately, Braul stopped going because church stopped being a part of her routine.

"I don't really feel like I've left the church," says Braul, now a 28-year-old high school teacher. "My current situation is more like: I slept in one Sunday, and then was busy the next Sunday, and then went out of town the next weekend, and before I knew it…
"Now it's almost easier not to go, because if you go, you have to explain to people where you've been."

Not an anomaly

Braul's situation isn't an anomaly. Go to most church meetings these days and, regardless of denomination, a topic of discussion will most likely be: "Where are our young people?"

In May, University of Lethbridge sociology professor Reginald Bibby noted during a presentation he gave in Ottawa at the annual meeting of the Canadian Sociological Association that from the 1960s through 2000, just above three in 10 Canadians claimed they had been in a place of worship in the previous seven days. That figure was down from the end of the 1950s, when the number was a solid six in 10.

Bibby, whose 30-plus years of monitoring social trends has included gathering pioneering data on religion and youth, noted that Baby Boomers were at the centre of this participation drop.

"Since young people learn religion from adults, they provide something of a mirror of the religiousness of adults—obviously not a perfect mirror but a mirror nonetheless," Bibby said during his presentation.

While seven out of 10 teens identify with religious groups, only about two in 10 attend services weekly or more, slightly over three in 10 monthly or more. And while those stats are for teenagers, they can't be far off for young adults in their 20s.

Bibby concluded his presentation with the finding that almost 40 per cent of young people who currently are not actively involved in religious groups nonetheless indicate that they are not closed to the possibility of greater participation.

"Teenagers, as well as younger adults, are highly pragmatic," Bibby said. "They have to find that greater levels of involvement are worthwhile—resulting in the enhancement of their lives and the lives of those who matter most to them. Otherwise, their outlook understandably seems to be, 'Why bother?'"

Not socially responsible

That's the case for Katie Buckboro. Two years ago, the University of Manitoba student stopped going to the interdenominational church she'd been faithfully attending for nearly 10 years because it was "really big, really corporate and really business-minded."

"I didn't find [the church] socially responsible," says the 24-year-old, who prior to attending the interdenominational church was raised Catholic. "I wouldn't say they were hateful, I would say they're misguided. I don't think they modeled [the teachings of] Jesus and inclusiveness the way they should have."

Leaving the church caused Buckboro to reevaluate everything she believes. Now she's uncomfortable stepping into a church for a service because the language used is, more often than not, patriarchal. She also has trouble with the Christian teaching that Jesus is the only way to God.

"My version of spirituality doesn't jive with any church that I can find … because I don't necessarily agree with Christianity as the be-all and end-all of spirituality. I don't have God pegged as a being with human characteristics. God is more of an energy."

Still, Buckboro hasn't cut all her ties to Christianity. She volunteers with the downtown church her boyfriend attends. Connecting with friends there is important to her, and so is working in the community surrounding the church.

"It's something I can tie myself to and feel good about furthering," she says of working with the church.

For all her hesitance to go to church these days, Buckboro acknowledges that going to church on Sunday mornings has value.

"I would raise my children in the church," she says. "But I don't think I'll tell them that everything they hear is correct."

Braul, who identifies as a Christian, will also go back when she starts a family.

"When I have kids, they're going to church," she says. "I think that's super important."

Express interest

If he has kids, Josh Ruth says he won't bring them to church unless they express interest in it.

Like Braul and Buckboro, the 28-year-old has an extensive history of church involvement: attending when he was a child, playing drums in the worship band as a teenager, working for a year as a youth pastor and earning a degree in Old Testament studies at Providence College and Theological Seminary.

But about five years ago, Ruth—a studio director at a non-profit community art centre in downtown Winnipeg—left the church because he no longer believes in the divine nature of Christ.

"I still observe a spiritual reality. I have just stopped trying to categorize it," he says. "We talk about God as if we can. Why are we so attached to our metaphors? … I believe there is something—a collective unconsciousness. We are all connected, and that is God to me."

He adds that he didn't leave Christianity on a whim. "It was a thought-out process," he says. "I didn't take it lightly."

Ruth valued the community he found attending church, but says he couldn't keep attending if he didn't agree with the central tenet that that community was based on—namely, that Jesus was the son of God who was sent to earth to die for the sins of humanity.

"Now my spiritual community, my 'church,' are the people around me: my friends, the people I work with, people I encounter on the street. It's based on the notion that I have something to learn from everyone I meet."

Accompany young adults

Kathy Giesbrecht has worked in ministry for 26 years. She is currently the associate pastor at Home Street Mennonite Church.

Giesbrecht says the church's goal should be to accompany young adults on their faith journey "in times of no faith and in times of explosive faith." More important than inviting young adults who have left the church back to the church is walking with them, whether they're attending or not.

"The critical point isn't whether they're attending [Sunday morning services], it's if we're in relationship with them," Giesbrecht says.

Her experience with young adults in the church is "extremely hopeful and positive," she adds. They're not looking to be passive attenders, but rather, they're looking for a meaningful experience and meaningful engagement.

"They want to enter faith with their hands and feet, and I find that hopeful. It's prophetic and it breathes life into a congregation."

Young adults who have distanced themselves from the church because they see it as a place where what's said doesn't match what is practiced especially have a place in the church, according to Giesbrecht.

"That's actually their role: their role is to bring idealism and critique. Often young adults are the renewing voice of the church, and that's why the church is at a loss if we can't create spaces to be together."