Millennials are a different breed when it comes to priorities, a Biola University dean said when a study released this week showed that only two in 10 people under 30 years of age believe church attendance is important. More than one-third of Millennial young adults (35 percent) take an anti-church stance.
"Millennials have more life disruptions than people of other stages of life," Todd Pickett, dean of Spiritual Development and professor of spiritual formation at Biola, told The Christian Post. "They are moving around a lot, they are changing relational networks. The highly mobile nature of the Millennial makes it hard for them to settle down into churches, it makes it hard to settle into patterns of life anyway."
Pickett gave at least a half dozen reasons he believes this age bracket was least likely to put an emphasis on church attendance as found in the Barna Group study.
The study overall found that although church involvement was once a cornerstone of American life, U.S. adults today are evenly divided on the importance of attending church. Half (49 percent) say it is "somewhat" or "very" important and the other 51 percent say it is "not too" or "not at all" important.
However, perhaps the most significant finding is that while one tries to predict whether Millennials will attend or return to church, the fact is that they are starting at a lower baseline for church participation and commitment than previous generations of young adults. Keep reading
Photo: Intervarsity Today/Barry Sherbeck
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