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A majority of young adults in Southern Baptist churches, like those in other Christian groups, drop out of any meaningful church involvement for a time between the ages of 18 and 28, recent studies have shown.
Lance Crowell, the SBTC’s church ministries associate responsible for collegiate ministries, says he wants the SBTC’s churches to know collegians and other young adults are reachable despite the alarming numbers.
Crowell said many, if not most, church parents are not developing their teenagers as Christian disciples, and family breakdown is a significant factor, he said. If Christian discipleship is not modeled at home, it is often a casualty when these young adults begin making life choices.
“The church has been responsible for discipling them, not the home,” Crowell said. “And I think that is a flawed idea. I think the church supplements what the family is doing at home. Hopefully the parents have spiritually developed them so at age 16 they love the church because they understand it, not just because this is what we do on Sunday or Wednesday.”
“What we offer is helping churches think through the process of doing ministry effectively to college students,” Crowell said. “Those who are interested, we want to help them through events like the ‘image’ statewide collegiate conference (May 22-24 at Southwestern Seminary) and helping them locate interns who can help develop a ministry to collegians.”
During the young adult years, “there is still a need for intentionally reaching them generationally because they are still developing, even as young adults,” Crowell said.
Crowell said one misperception is that churches must offer “bells and whistles” akin to many youth ministries to attract collegians and young adults. Not so, he said.
“College students are at a point in life where they are asking some big questions. The maturing of that really happens in college. And specifically, this generation is very dialogical. They are not as lecture-based as they are dialogical. So if you have people who can love on them, who know the Word, and who can challenge them in an engaging way, you can start and develop a ministry in almost any place.
“The truth of the matter is, you really need some leaders, perhaps some lay folks, who really want to connect with this group. And then you need to strategically think about what that means in your town and your church.”
A study last year from LifeWay Research revealed that more than two-thirds of young adults who attend a Protestant church for at least a year in high school will stop attending church regularly for at least a year between the ages of 18 and 22.
Brad Waggoner, now vice president of Broadman & Holman Publishers who was then director of LifeWay Research, told Baptist Press: “Church leaders should passionately and consistently challenge church members to maximize their influence with youth and young adults. Frequent and intentional contact can either prevent or counteract the tendency of some to drop out of church.”
More information on the ‘image’ statewide collegiate conference or on SBTC collegiate ministries is available on the web at sbtexas.com/collegiate.
