Faith Matters: Church Attendance and this Newest Generation

A book now out is starting a conversation about young people and their church involvement.

It's called "You Lost Me, Why Young Christians are Leaving Church and Rethinking Faith" by David Kinnman. It's about millennials, what this current generation is called, and it says many of them while growing in faith are decreasing in church involvement.

We asked students at the University of Arkansas Little Rock (UALR) and Philander Smith College, a United Methodist institution about their church attendance. Mandi Carreiro a UALR student says, "I think it's important to go to church because that's where we get our support from." LaQuita Beasley a student at Philander Smith College agrees saying, "I need church, it's a guideline for my life. Without church I don't know what I'd do."

While students we spoke to say church for them is not an option. They add bedside baptist and web wide worship are some of their friends choices. Alex Erdmann is a sophomore at Philander Smith College. "It's one thing to wake up in your dorm room and to stream church online but it's just an unusual spirit, it's something really about fellowshipping with other believers."

Walter Kimbrough, the president of Philander Smith College, says on his campus he's definitely spoken to students who say the church is simply not meeting needs. Saying, "a lot of students are saying I just want to be spiritual because they are seeing things that are happening nationally in terms of church and so there's a lot of people who are skeptics."

Rae Kyle is a senior at Philander Smith, "I don't go every Sunday but when I feel like I need to go, I'll go."

Even with a church in the middle of the campus, Kimbrough says it's a struggle to get students to come and says the church needs to find a new way to grab the millennials generation's attention. "They want someone who can speak to them and be real and honest with them because that's what they are looking for. They don't want the pretenses. They don't want the orthodoxies of the church. They want someone who can get in their face and say this is real life."

Wesley Baltimore is a students at UALR and he says, "if you say you really love God and really love being a Christian than you really need to take time out of your day to go to church."

To read a CNN article on the subject. Click here.

For another article. Click here.