Based on a survey she did for her work at the Office of Outreach, Rachel shares five trends in how young people respond to the General Church. -Editor
For the past year I have been an intern with the New Church Office of Outreach (of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, which is referred to throughout this article as 'the New Church' or 'the church'). Last April we put on an outreach conference in Glenview, IL with the focus of finding ways to reach out to the younger generation because so many young people today are just not interested in the church. Leading up to the conference I decided to do a survey of young people (between 18 and 35) who have some connection to the New Church. The survey got almost 300 responses that were enlightening, challenging, and showed how strongly young people feel about the church even if they are not coming to services. After reading the results multiple times there were five main themes that I picked out in the responses.
I noticed in the responding comments that young people like the idea of new programs and different worship styles but what they really want to change about the church is the mindset of its members. What I mean by mindset is the way we think about the people in our church and in the world, and the way we teach about Swedenborg’s Writings. One comment put it really well: “it is not the style of music or time of day that are keeping the Church's current offerings from reaching today's youth. It's the doctrinal approach.” This does not mean change the Writings, but I think we can examine the way we are teaching them and the way we respond to the struggles and questions of the younger generation. What I got from the survey was that young people want to be around other people who have a mindset of discussion and interaction with the truths, rather than one of teaching or of telling young people what the truth is. This is supported by David Kinnaman, the President of the Barna research group who wrote the book UnChristian where he discussed the results from a huge survey his group did of Christian young people. He says,
“Since [young people] are more likely to possess a nonlinear fluid way of processing life, they are increasingly comfortable with subtlety, nuance, ambiguity, and contradiction” (72).To me this speaks to the desire I noticed in the survey to have sincere, complex conversation about life, the doctrines, faith and all that good stuff.
The next topic mentioned by many young adults was that they live too far away from congregations to go to church regularly or be involved in activities. This is understandable in a small church and hopefully as we grow that will change. But it is good to remember that there are people who are far away who would like to be included and there are many ways we could reach out to them as a church; for example sending them the church newsletter or giving them a call when there is a big event coming up. I am always moved when Valentine’s Day comes around and college students all receive Valentine’s Day care packages from their home churches. I have seen my friends' faces light up because they got a picture drawn by a third graders back home or a roll of quarters for laundry. That kind of thoughtfulness can go a long way and I think we could find other ways of giving the same feeling to young people. Another factor that prevents young people from going to church or being involved is that they frequently have new babies or young children. Many people mentioned this in the survey and I think it could be really useful to make sure church groups not only have Sunday school but also have free babysitting at church events so that young couples are able to come. For example, Lori Odhner has organized a ‘Couples' Night Out’ in the Bryn Athyn Church where parents get to have an evening away from their kids. Lori gets together a group of babysitters and then invites parents in the community to drop off their children for the night, giving tired parents time to themselves.
People in the church being judgmental or discriminatory, especially about women in the ministry and homosexuality came up often in the survey. This comment by one young adult who took the survey represents what many others were saying,
“'I am more likely to be involved in church activities if...' women were equally involved in leadership and people of all sexual orientations, genders, classes, races, etc. were welcomed as humans with beautiful variety and gifts to give.”I am not going to talk about the policy or theology, I want to focus on the mindset and the way General Church members talk about these topics. There were young people who took the survey and said that they see the church as hating homosexuals and as being sexist against women and from my experience neither of these are true across the board of what General Church people think and certainly not what the Writings teach. So what I think is important to focus on is talking about homosexuals without contempt and being clear that we do not condemn them to hell, and on being willing to listen to and participate in discussion about the sexes. David Kinnaman got similar feedback in his survey and I appreciated the way he approached this issue,
“Are we openly and honestly talking about sexual issues in our churches? Or are we hiding behind religious pretenses, pushing people away who have deep hurts and needs?” (58)If we can be open and talk about why we do or don’t support these issues that could go a long way towards having a community where we understand and respect each other.
75% of the survey takers said that they would be energized about being involved in church activities. But as part of their answers to this question many young adults said that they are rarely asked to be involved and that they don’t feel that their ideas and personal experience are being valued by the church. Some commenters felt that they were only being asked to be involved in order to “to fill a quota.” Young people said that they really want to be invited personally to be part of an event or service because of talents they have, they want the person inviting them to care about them and want their perspective. One young adult from the survey said,
“I want to be welcome to bring some of myself to the activity and not just fill a dictated slot.”A big part of young people leaving is that they do not feel necessary to the church; the older people are more involved, wiser, and wealthier so there is no need for them to stick around. Another thing to remember is that this generation does not want to be advertised to. Kinnaman points out why this is,
“Today’s young people are the target of more advertising, media, and marketing than any generation before. And their mindset is both incredibly savvy and unusually jaded” (22)he says later that what young people really need and want is “to experience transparency in their leaders” (57). I think churches do not want to be part of the big bad world of marketing because realness is so important in a spiritual environment. So we need to be careful when inviting anyone, and especially young people, that we are being personal, sincere, and transparent. We could do more to seek out the younger generation as leaders and participants and show them that their perspective is very much needed in the church.
The last thing I want to talk about is how we welcome people into the church. More than 69% of the young adults who took this survey described New Church congregations as friendly, but also 36% of those surveyed described congregations as exclusive and 41% described them as judgmental. This paradox was summed up by a commenter: “Sometimes I think about this question, ‘Is this the kind of church community I would want to welcome a new friend into?’ For example, if I were to meet my future spouse and be faced with introducing that person to my church congregation, do I feel that person would feel welcome? I think there is more I can do to create that kind of community. I think young people have an especially important role in reaching out with open arms to create a welcoming atmosphere.”
I think another part of the need for a welcoming atmosphere is that young people want to know that people who have made mistakes, and really need the Lord’s love, are welcome at church; that church members would reach out to a person dealing with substance abuse, or would try to help someone who has broken their marriage with infidelity. Here again there needs to be a mindset that we are here to offer good and truth to the world and not to be an exclusive community.
These are the top five trends that I noticed in the survey; I have tried to represent as many of the responses as I can. I want to leave you with one more thought. Every time I read the survey results I am left feeling a little defensive. I love the church so it is easy to feel attacked when I hear someone talking about it negatively or voicing an opinion that I see as uninformed, and my instinct is to jump in and correct that person. But through reading these results I was struck by the importance of listening. On a human level, one of the best ways to make people feel safe and understood is just to hear what they have to say without attacking or defending. And on an organizational level, it seems necessary to make some changes if we are going to grow and a step in that process is to find out what is on the hearts and minds of young people, even if it’s hard to hear. So I leave you with an appeal to listen to the voices of young people in your congregations, and especially to hear the emotion behind the words so that you can better understand where they are coming from.
Rachel loves the New Church and cares deeply about getting young people involved. She has been interning with the Office of Outreach for a year and a half and has also worked with the Bryn Athyn Church to make opportunities for young people to be involved. She is currently a junior at Bryn Athyn College, and works as a Resident Assistant at the Academy of the New Church High School girls' dorm.