One of the hardest demographics to minister to is young adults.
Moving past the temptation of sleeping in on Sundays, there is more at play than the desire to hit the snooze button when it comes to the decline of young adult ministry. For example, a significant challenge for millennials with families in the church is breaking away from the label of the "preacher's kid" or "kingdom kid."
The commendable practice of raising children in the church protects the youth from the exposure to what the world has to offer. Eventually, children mature into young adults, making them old enough to make decisions about the world but too young to understand the ramifications of those decisions.
There is a pressing need for faith in the lives of college students.
The young adult ministry is important because the time between the end of high school and the beginning of college is when they need the most guidance in their soul-searching. This time is very similar to the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15, when Jesus tells a parable about the son who goes off on his own for months before realizing that he needs to return to his father.
Unfortunately, in most cases, it won't just be months that people fall away. It could be years or even decades, and that all starts when they are a young adult.
Often, college students assume they have too much on their plates and that they can't commit themselves to God. School, work and relationships are a lot to juggle for people, even without adding in a relationship with God.
Then from college, you transition into a career and start worrying about paying for a place to live, car payments and student loans. These responsibilities continue to add up, begging the question: Will you ever not be too busy to commit your life to God?
Christianity Today reported back in 2011 that "millennials that don't go to college tend to be even less religious than their peers — a trend reversal since the 1990s."
This secular trend of millennials means that there are a select few that live as Christians in college but even fewer when they decide not to attend college. Churches tend to cater more toward students in four-year colleges, allowing them to grow from their freshman to senior years. Then they would enter an adult ministry, ready to handle both their commitments as an adult and as a disciple of Jesus.
The generation gap is also causing decreased interest in the young adult ministry.
Now, with faith, the lost will return. But the longer that takes, the less need there is for a young adult ministry. Creating an environment for young professionals and college students that allows them to worship God, in a way that is their own rather than their parents', is the entire reason there are young adult ministries.
Young adults also find it harder to relate to those within their church community since "those between 18 and 29 make up less than 15% of the congregation in most churches," according to Pew Research Center. That also implies that pastors are becoming older, which makes them less relatable from the perspective of a young adult.
A key component to any community is like-mindedness, and while the goal within a church setting is to achieve that through sharing the same beliefs, sharing the same struggles is also key. And that is lost when younger people can't relate to the elders of the church.
Unfortunately, there's no clear answer to the dilemma young adults face when deciding to come back to church. Even with campus ministers in place, it still comes down to an issue of the heart, throwing all practicality aside.
Convictions develop under trial, so if young adults need to fall away while they are in college to come back to Jesus, then churches need to have the leadership and grace to welcome them back with open arms.
