Tell us something we didn’t know! However, Jason Gardiner continued by warning that young people were far likelier to absorb the story of secularism than they were the story of Christianity.
With an estimated 70 per cent drop out rate among young Christians in the Western church, he said there was a challenge to bring young people deeper into their discipleship and move from passive to active faith.
This requires that the church regard youth work as more than a “tag on”, he continued.
“We suddenly wonder why when they hit age 18 or their twenties they are not reintegrating into mainstream church,” he said.
“It’s because we made them used to an entirely different style of church that’s really relevant for them, and then we try and graft them into a radically different experience of church than the one they’ve grown up with.
“From zero to 18, they might not sit through a normal church service or celebrate worship with the adult family and then we expect them to suddenly change to our style of church. It’s a big shift.”
He echoed the concerns of sociologist Tony Campolo, who warned that the church had perhaps made Christianity “too easy” for young people.
“We come along to a cell group once a week and we come to Sunday service. Is this what Christianity is or are we setting the bar too low for them and they don’t want to grab it?” said Gardner.
To involve young people in the life of the church, he said, it was going to take more than giving them the job of handing out the hymnbooks.
“It’s the culture of the church that sends out the right messages that say we want you on board and not just in a token sense, a youth service once a month, but we want you to be right at the heart of what we are doing as a church.”
In addition to greater involvement, Gardner said there was a strong desire for affirmation among young people.
In a world where 750 million people are Facebook users, the internet has moved on from being a resource for information, to providing an extended community. It’s interactive, it is a “peer experience”, and most of all, it eliminates the need to meet in a physical place.
“You don’t need to go to church to stay connected or in touch. You have an iPhone,” he explained.
In my reading, I had to set these remarks from this side of the Atlantic in juxta – position to what is to me, an interesting outcome of a recent hymnal survey by the Episcopal Church in the USA.
One of the reports submitted to General Convention this year analyzes the interest in the Episcopal Church in revising their 1982 Hymnal. The task of doing the research was passed to the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, and they’ve posted their long report on the Church Pension Group website. (The Pension Group holds the copyright etc.)
The report contains information that might be surprising to some, but not to all. Robert Hendrikson writes:
“The group that was most resistant to the idea of revising the hymnal are those under 29 years of age. They are the most resistant by a large percentage. The report concludes, on page 57,
‘Respondents in their twenties and younger are statistically different than the rest of the respondents, reporting the least interest in desiring worship music to reflect their personal musical tastes. This proves counter to the ‘common knowledge’ theory that younger congregants are looking for a more modern or popular-music experience at church.’
The survey found that those ‘whose age is significantly above or below 50 are less likely to support revision. Middle-aged Episcopalians are more supportive of revision than younger and older Episcopalians.’
Among clergy, the numbers are striking, ‘Specifically, both the youngest and oldest clerics tend to be more opposed to revision, while middle-aged clergy are more favorably disposed. Clergy who are younger than 30, in fact, are nearly two-thirds in opposition to revision.’”
There was strong support from female clergy for revising the language of the hymns, and less from the male clergy. There was no gender based difference among the laity who filled out the survey.
The critical point is that the young set didn’t particularly want change or to be catered for differently.
The challenge remains for me as to how you nurture young people and children within the ethos and identity of their faith community – in my case how we shape them as Irish and Anglican – no matter how you define Irish!
I regret that much of what I have seen and still see which passes for so-called “youth ministry” in my own Church seems to be anything but Anglican in its form of worship or indeed at times in its doctrine or spirituality. And without becoming an old ‘girn’ in the corner, this is underscored by the fact that much of what I value from my past, that which shaped and nurtured me and a multitude of my contemporaries in the faith, seems no longer to have currency to many of my clerical colleagues. This is by no means age-banded.
So, its not just the youth who may be disenchanted with the Church, though the reasons some of much older age group cohorts may have left has more to do with the Church of Ireland leaving them, than they wishing to leave the Church. Sadly this has happened in too many parishes where the title Church of Ireland on the noticeboard, and on the stipend cheque, is not reflected in the style of worship in the so-called C of I church building.
If I could hear a debate in my Church on this – even at 25% of the rumpus on same sex issues – I might take some individual members of the House of Bishops more seriously. The responsibility for worship and the maintenance of discipline, after all is said and done, is theirs. “This cure which is both thine and mine”, is just more than a passing liturgical phrase at an institution.
How about a Bill of Rights for baptised Irish Anglicans which gives an entitlement of Anglican worship readily available, well presented within the human resources available, and accessible at least weekly at ALL parish churches? A focussed sharpening up of existent elements in the Constitution and those now episcopally in vogue “Formularies” would be a good starting point. In some parts of this island including those under the episcopal oversight of men who wax at length about the current “big issue” on sex, this denial of Irish Anglican entitlement sadly seems indeed to have tacit permission from the chief pastor himself.
Houston McKelvey