I became a church organist at the age of 18, and it was the first time I had been to church since I had been confirmed. At the time, I was the only person within my group of friends who went to church, and I consider myself extremely fortunate that I was given this opportunity to develop a relationship with Jesus Christ. I’m now 39, and I can still say that the vast majority of my friends do not attend church. I’ve watched the weekly attendance at my current parish dwindle from 140-150 a week to 90-110 a week over the past 13 years.
I don’t think this is a problem with our parish, as many parishes are experiencing the same problem. Instead, I think it is a problem with Christian education. As I mentioned, most of my friends don’t go to church. They consider themselves atheist. We are confirming (or “graduating”) children from Sunday School at the age of 12, at which point, we lose them. We are telling them they know everything they need to know, and we hope that that’s enough to keep their interest – and their parent’s interest. It’s not – they’re 12 years old!!! They reach an age where they learn to question things, and religion doesn’t make sense to them. It’s easier to deny a greater power than to try and develop a relationship with God.
As a result, we have given birth to a nation of unbelievers. Because people have been born into Christianity, they feel they have a right to tear it down when they don’t understand it.
We have to revamp how we educate children (and maybe even adults) in the church, so that when they are ready to question what they have been taught in Sunday school, there is a support system to help them find their way. Maybe this means delaying confirmation to an age at which they are asking questions for themselves, and they are better informed to make decisions.
Hello Bob,
Your experiences and observations are quite common. We Anglicans are most certainly a minority within Canada. Also, that our attendance has been steadily deminishing is well documented and known. All of the efforts at revision and inclusiveness have not resulted in attracking any measurable increase in membership. In fact it appears to have done the exact opposite by upsetting and alienating the existing Congregations, many to the point of leaving us.
I have read this elsewhere, and I think it is worth repeating here. People don’t come to church for more of what they get everywhere/anywhere else. They come for the Word of God. If the Word of God is absent, than we are no longer a Church. Instead we have turned ourselves into nothing more than a social club, or just another community service group.
Hi Bob,
I understand completely the discovery of faith through ministry: in both our cases, that was becoming the church organist. I often think that if youth felt as if they had a place in the church, that is, if they felt valued, known and cherished in a community of the church, it would be much easier for them to find what is so powerful about faith. Had I not that ministry, I would not be in the position that I am today, and life would be just as dim as it was when I described myself as athiest.
Helping young people find a ministry, and cherishing them for who they are and the gifts they have, would (in my opinion) change the lives of those finding their ministry. The obvious ministries are usualy reading, serving, music and preaching, and it usually stops at that, but I feel we need to cherish other ministries. If a young person has a gift for technology, then that is a gift given by God to them, and by turning a gift into a ministry, we give them a purpose – a reason to live, to love, to laugh and a reason to believe that that gift wasn’t an accident.