Rachel Held Evans, like most young adults, left Christianity for a number of years as she approached her 30th birthday. That journey of leaving Evangelical Christianity and her subsequent homecoming in the Episcopal Church is the subject of a new book titled Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving and Finding the Church.
In the Washington Post last week Held Evans reflected on the topic of millennials in the church today. She contends that in many cases congregations are trying too hard in a frantic attempt to keep young people in the pews and outside of becoming a “none.”
In response, many churches have sought to lure millennials back by focusing on style points: cooler bands, hipper worship, edgier programming, impressive technology. Yet while these aren’t inherently bad ideas and might in some cases be effective, they are not the key to drawing millennials back to God in a lasting and meaningful way. Young people don’t simply want a better show. And trying to be cool might be making things worse.
You’re just as likely to hear the words “market share” and “branding” in church staff meetings these days as you are in any corporate office. Megachurches such as Saddleback in Lake Forest, Calif., and Lakewood in Houston have entire marketing departments devoted to enticing new members. Kent Shaffer of ChurchRelevance.com routinely ranks the best logos and Web sites and offers strategic counsel to organizations like Saddleback and LifeChurch.tv.
Held Evans contends that most young people aren’t interested in being entertained on Sunday morning. They want to pray in the midst of an authentic community of faith, a community that is inclusive and truly welcoming. She cites a Barna survey among young people who currently don’t go to church that shows that 87% believe Christians are judgmental and 85% believe that Christians are hypocritical.
In other words, a church can have a sleek logo and Web site, but if it’s judgmental and exclusive, if it fails to show the love of Jesus to all, millennials will sniff it out. Our reasons for leaving have less to do with style and image and more to do with substantive questions about life, faith and community. We’re not as shallow as you might think.
If young people are looking for congregations that authentically practice the teachings of Jesus in an open and inclusive way, then the good news is the church already knows how to do that. The trick isn’t to make church cool; it’s to keep worship weird.
As for Held Evans herself, her journey led her to believe that in the end the sacraments are the most important element of church life.
What finally brought me back, after years of running away, wasn’t lattes or skinny jeans; it was the sacraments. Baptism, confession, Communion, preaching the Word, anointing the sick — you know, those strange rituals and traditions Christians have been practicing for the past 2,000 years. The sacraments are what make the church relevant, no matter the culture or era. They don’t need to be repackaged or rebranded; they just need to be practiced, offered and explained in the context of a loving, authentic and inclusive community.
Read Held Evan’s entire Washington Post commentary here.
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