The church in all western countries including the US is losing the under-35 at an alarming rate, which has ominous implications for the future of the church as the boomer's retire from 2010 to 2030. While there is a growing spiritual hunger among the under -35 they are not beating the doors of the established church down to satisfy it. They don’t seem to be attracted to what we are offering. (Being 36, most of my friends have either now left Church or downsized Church or Church Commitment - Phil)
In many established churches you have to be 40 and male to be taken seriously. One of the reasons we are losing our under-35 is that they are not willing to hang around middle aged congregations until they are middle aged and their ideas are finally welcomed. The key issue we need to address is how to invite the young into ownership in our churches much earlier.
(Many Churches pretend that they are letting the young ones take leadership, but just because the young ones are up the front my experience tells me that the Old guys are still controlling in the back ground and only chose the young ones they are untheatened by - Phil)
I am very concerned that many Christians operate as though all the important theological questions have been asked and we got all the answers right... decades ago. I seriously question whether many of the answers we operate from are as biblically grounded as we assume they are... from our assumptions about what it means to be a disciple of Christ, be the church and do the mission of the church. I am convinced we need to spend much more time reflecting on “why we do what we do.”
poached and manipulated the original words from www.ginkworld.net
House Church Simple Church Emergent
