As a twenty year-old Christian, I find that my childhood view of the church has changed drastically. When I was younger, I viewed the church as a place to learn about God and fellowship with others my age. Not that I was not before, but now I am more serious and adamant about my faith and relationship with Christ as I have matured in life. However, I have come to find that I am not getting what I need to grow and strengthen my faith.

First of all, I am all for tradition and for respecting those elder to you. I think there is much respect due to the tradition of not only the church, but for the establishment the generations before us have brought. A lot of things that are prevalent in young Christians' beliefs, values, and faith have stemmed from those we now consider "traditional." Contemporary music holds the same message traditional hymns do. Youth groups still study out of the Bible, even though they may be located on our cellular devices. However, I find that the number of young adult Christians in the church are few and dwindling. Most people ask why or blame it on the fact that our generation is lazy, entitled, and were not raised up correctly. While some are lazy, entitled, and had a lack of correct raising up with little or no following of Christ, there are those of us are hardworking, faithful, and obedient to the path Christ has set before us.

In the church today, many hear the older men and women passing disdain on my generation for being too involved in technology, for not having good work ethic, and many other things. Many disagree with the liberalistic views about marriage, politics, and rights of people. Let's face the truth of the situation. My generation IS different than the older generation. We have more technology, more access to the world, and different perspectives on virtually every topic than our elders. So when people are worried about the way my generation is acting or how the number of young people in the church are becoming less and less, there is no need to talk about it or only pray. Prayer is needed as prayer is so powerful, but we need to explore the WHY and take action. Why are young people leaving the church? Why don't they believe in Christ? Why? As one of the young people, I find that there are many different reasons.

Boredom, judgment, condemnation, labeling, no change in anything. As I said before, my generation is very different and has had many advances during our childhood and young adult years. We are much more of a liberal generation. We have seen the legalization of gay marriage, abortion is no closer to being abolished as it was 15 years ago, and drugs are a bigger epidemic now than ever before. Through all of this I find that the older members of the church are more critical of not only these people, but the people who support them. Let's face it. People are gay. People are liars, cheats, and drunks. People will steal, give into laziness, and kill. That is this world. However, that does not mean that this generation is doomed by any means. I would also like to point out that while I am being the advocate for my generation, I do not agree with every viewpoint or political stance of the older or younger generation, but am simply being devil's advocate for the two parties involved.

When the older generation steps up and starts talking about the abomination of gays and how abortion is never going to end with the actions of my generation, it is negative. No one likes negativity. No one. So those who see themselves as gay, lesbian, bi, transgender, whatever, are not going to want to be involved in something where they are constantly torn apart and torn down and told how much of a sinner they are. And, believe it or not, there are gay Christians, bisexual Christians, transgender Christians. They exist. Regardless of someone's sexual orientation or imperfection, they should be loved. Even if you do not support them, love them. Love. Everyone. Always. You sin. I sin. Everyone sins. Everyone should be welcome into the house of God as they are. We are all broken and working through our brokenness. Open your heart, love on someone. Guide them. Ask them about themselves. Get to know them as a person. Not as the 'queer' or the 'transgender.'

Don't criticize the laziness or lack of work ethic of someone. We are lectured enough in life and there is enough condemnation and disdain passed in our everyday life just by our peers. We don't need it from those older than us too. Guide a person. Want someone to develop a work ethic? Show them how. We were raised by the generation (s) before us and we were supposed to be taught that as children. Somewhere along the way, that did not happen. So help us. Don't criticize or lecture, show us and lead us. We do pay attention.

Traditional churches often lose or do not attract the younger generation because the older generation in the church is so unwilling to change. Humanity hates change. Our very bodies do not like change; in temperature, weather, atmospheric pressure. We get overheated, too cold, allergies, headaches, et cetera. I feel that the older generation is against moving into a contemporary period because of these side effects. They have always worshipped this way and what is wrong with that? Nothing. However, they are the older generation. They will soon be gone and the younger generation will have to take over. So, can your church survive on the younger generation it has now? I know mine won't. With the advances in the modern time period, traditional services don't always speak to us like they do to the older generation. I do believe that everyone should go into a service expecting God to move, but in the hustle and bustle of today's society the younger folk need attention grabbers. We have short attention spans and we need excitement. After all, we are young and still have a relative amount of energy even in our 20s. We need to adapt. We need to change. Without it, the church will dwindle and the church will backslide. We need a place of safety, security, love, and a place that holds a presence of God.

So, next option. If the younger generation wants a more contemporary worship service and the church wants higher numbers, why not just have two services? One traditional, one contemporary. Sure, why not? That could work...except most churches debating this topic are either already small churches or would not have enough numbers to fulfill the workings of both services. Not to mention, we need to start witnessing and showing the young people that we aren't necessarily the radically conservative, judgmental people that stereotypes make us out to be.

We need change. We need to build the church. We don't want the church to be empty when our Savior returns. So, how can we help each other to build and strengthen the church and the younger generation's faith? Let's do it.