Younger spiritual audience dwindling - AltoonaMirror.com - Altoona, PA | News, Sports, Jobs, Community Information - The Altoona Mirror

Younger spiritual audience dwindling - AltoonaMirror.com - Altoona, PA News, Sports, Jobs, Community Information - The Altoona Mirror

Younger spiritual audience dwindling
Religious institutions work to bring back unaffiliated youth
December 4, 2011
By Linda T. Gracey (lgracey@altoonamirror.com) , The Altoona Mirror

Church is out, and spirituality is in. That's how people in their 30s and younger think.

Those born after 1980 are considerably less religious than older Americans, according to a 2009 report "Religion Among the Millennials" from The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Locally, leaders of denominations are noticing the trend.

"Clearly, we are missing young adults in our parishes," said Bishop Gregory Pile of the Allegheny Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. "The proportion of young adults in the general population is not being reflected in the pews."

The Pew report states that young adults "are less likely to be affiliated than their parents' and grandparents' generations were when they were young. Fully, one in four members of the Millennial generation are unaffiliated with any particular faith."

"Young adults also attend religious services less often than older Americans today," the Pew reports states. "And compared with their elders today, fewer young people said that religion is very important in their lives."

Experiencing change

Jeff Miley, pastor of Tyrone Church of the Brethren, said it is the age group that goes to college, a time when young adults tend to pull away from their faith.

"They go out in the world for the first time and experience so much," he said. "They have difficulty processing it."

"They may leave their faith and seek the ways of the world," Miley said. "Unless they come to a pastor or someone of faith who is more mature, they flounder."

He said young adults are looking for worship where they feel invited and loved.

About a dozen or more young adults attend services at Tyrone Church of the Brethren, which is a fair representation of that age group for the Tyrone church as a whole, Miley said.

He said young people are eschewing imposing edifices and ritual.

"We are more relaxed. You feel the presence of God because of the love of God [among the people], not because of stained glass windows," Miley said.

Bishop Mark L. Bartchak of the Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown has observed that all age groups, not just those in their 20s and 30s, are attending Mass less frequently. Although Catholics may not be as active in their parish communities, "I am keenly aware that their faith is still there, especially in that young adult crowd," he said.

"When I visit college campuses, students don't want to talk about sports. They want to talk about their Catholic faith," he said.

Off campus, young adults gather at Theology on Tap sessions offered by the diocese, where they openly discuss their Catholic faith and ask questions of clergy in a pub/restaurant setting.

"It's a very popular venue," Bartchak said.

Seeking personal connections

Bartchak believes people enjoy small groups and one-on-one contacts because "they hunger for real personal attention."

He said Americans live at a hectic pace where it is important to have technological gadgets cellphones, laptops and iPads - that make it quicker and faster to perform tasks and communicate. But on the flip side, technology leaves out the personal element when it comes to communicating.

"People are looking for a real personal contact as opposed to a virtual contact," Bartchak said. "When people talk to me about their faith, they want to be connected."

He said the church helps people to connect on two levels - the human personal level and an introduction or reintroduction to the person of Jesus Christ.

The trend to forgo services also can be seen in the Jewish faith.

Bill Wallen, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Altoona, said houses of worship do not have the authority they once did and fewer people are affiliated.
"There was a time when a rabbi, priest or minister used to carry more authority," he said. "And parents would reinforce that authority. It is less so anymore."

He said at one time, almost every Jewish person belonged to a synagogue. Now, especially in the cities, business and professional people belong to independent minyans or prayer services.

Wallen said young people use websites to enrich their Jewish faith or may attend services or events at an Orthodox chabad.

Interfaith marriage and a more mobile society may be part of the reason why attendance is less frequent.

"It used to be common that you only dated people within the Jewish world," he said. But now the barriers are broken down and the Jewish community is more welcoming to a non-Jewish spouse, he said.

In interfaith families, the partners may go to one or both services.

"A lot of others don't go. It's easier not to offend," he said.

A more transient society may also lead to less affiliation.

"They [young adults] don't stay in the community," he said. "They grow up and move away."

Starting from scratch

Another reason why young people don't make worship a priority could be because they never had a spiritual base in the first place.

The Rev. Ed Preston, pastor of Mardorf United Methodist Church in Juniata Gap, said people don't go to church for various reasons, including the fact that their parents did not take them when they were children.

For those who did go, images of how services were when they were younger don't always fit in a post-modern culture.

Preston said despite changes in society, the church tried to remain the way it was in the 1950s.

"We were a force to be reckoned with. We were in the public square. Clergy and religious leaders were looked up to for their opinions. Now we can't put a Nativity scene on the public square," Preston said.

"We lost the power of the public square, but that's OK. That's not what Christ called the church to be," he said. "We got full of ourselves and thought it was all about us. It's not about us. It's about those who aren't here yet.

"The gospel is relevant, fresh and exciting," Preston said. "The role of the church is making disciples. It's how we transform the world. We are supposed to be changing hearts."
Preston said the Mardorf congregation is working toward that goal. It has transformed its worship and is making other adjustments to make it more welcoming to those who grew up in the latter part of the 20th century.

The services include multimedia images and contemporary Christian music. Even the nursery has been revamped to assure young parents that their babies are in a safe, clean, well-equipped environment, leaving them free to worship.

Changing priorities

At Curryville Church of the Brethren, Pastor David Stiles believes attendance is down because of a shift in priorities.

"You have seven choices and time to do four. Three things get scratched. Church is not essential. It gets scratched," he said.
He called Sunday the new Saturday. People shop, do their laundry and catch up on chores on Saturdays.

"By Saturday night, they are exhausted. On Sunday, they want to chill out, stay home," he said.

Others don't have that luxury because their jobs overshadow worship. People might have to work on the weekends at their main job or a second job they have to keep food on the table.

If it isn't work that keeps families away from worship, it might be recreation. Miley said at his church, girls who play on a traveling softball team are no longer attending services.

"You have to maintain a habit [of going to church]," he said. "If you break the pattern, it is harder to get back."

Pile said fewer people are looking to the church to observe significant events in life.

"Everybody used to have a pastor when someone died. Now some have a party," he said.

When they marry, they have other options than the church, and baptism is not important as it once was, Pile said.

"People have drifted away from a deep and abiding relationship with God through devotion and prayer. They are so busy and are distracted by the demands on their time," Pile said.

Family units under attack

Monsignor Michael Servinsky, vicar general for the Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, traces part of the spiritual deficit problem to the 1960s when the birth control pill was introduced and free love became the philosophy.

Servinsky said that Pope Paul VI warned in his papal encyclical letter "Humane Vitae: On the Regulation of Birth" that artificial birth control would damage the family.
"We see it happening," Servinsky said. "The family is under attack. We see more and more divorces. Families are scattered. We no longer have extended family connections to pass on religious values. Children have two fathers and two mothers."

Servinsky also spoke about how relativism has permeated the culture and how people look at life.

"Do your own thing" seems to be the guiding force, he said. "Absolute values aren't there. We have such a sense of individualism that we have lost a sense of community."
Servinsky said although these concepts began in the late 1960s, "It takes awhile for these movements to flower. We are seeing the fruit of what we were sowing."