{"id":179,"date":"2009-06-02T10:57:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-02T10:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/06\/college-students-and-church-attendance.html"},"modified":"2009-06-02T10:57:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-02T10:57:00","slug":"college-students-and-church-attendance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/06\/college-students-and-church-attendance.html","title":{"rendered":"College Students and Church Attendance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Take a group of 100 young adults,<\/span> under the age of 30. Put them in a room, and ask them how they feel about Church. The Church. Church with a capital-C. Here’s what you’ll learn:<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>46<\/span> of these young adults are generally annoyed by Christians. (I can relate.)<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>67<\/span> of these young adults think Church is filled with hypocrites. (They’re right. All humans — and therefore all Christians — are pretty much hypocrites.)<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>77<\/span> of these young adults think Christianity is more about organized religion than a life lived loving God and loving people. (Again, I’m not sure I’d argue much with that.)<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>90<\/span> of them would argue that they can have a satisfying relationship with God outside of regular church attendance. (Wait: I’m not as on-board with this one.)<\/p>\n

What all this means is that a lot of college students and 20somethings are making the decision to either leave or avoid the church — even if they remain Christians, and even if they grew up attending church. Dan Kimball’s book They Like Jesus But Not the Church<\/span><\/a> explored this phenomenon a couple years ago, and a new book called Lost and Found,<\/span><\/a> by Ed Stetzer, Richie Stanley, and Jason Hayes takes another look at it (the stats above come from Lost and Found<\/span>).<\/p>\n

Why bring this up? Because I’m writing an article about the topic for a magazine for college students, and I want to tell some stories. I need to talk to current and recent college students who read the stats above and think, “That’s me.” If you are in college (or are a recent graduate) and you have purposefully disconnected from the Church, I want to talk to you — especially if you still maintain a connection to Christianity.<\/p>\n

I know this fits some of you regular readers. Tell your story in the comments, or shoot me an email.<\/p>\n

And even if you’re not a college student, I’d love to hear your story. Leave a comment and let’s discuss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Take a group of 100 young adults, under the age of 30. Put them in a room, and ask them how they feel about Church. The Church. Church with a capital-C. Here’s what you’ll learn: \u2022 46 of these young adults are generally annoyed by Christians. (I can relate.) \u2022 67 of these young adults…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-religion","category-writing"],"yoast_head":"\nCollege Students and Church Attendance - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/06\/college-students-and-church-attendance.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"College Students and Church Attendance - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Take a group of 100 young adults, under the age of 30. 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