The Most Overlooked Reason Why Millennials (& Gen Z) Have Left the Church

We were talking with a friend last night after dinner, and it struck me like a brick hitting Marv in the head in Home Alone 2.

Millennials and Gen Z never left the church.

Millennials and Gen Z were never part of the church in the first place.

This is the most overlooked reason in all of our talk of why millennials have left church and how is it that we can get Gen Z to go to church.

We have to dig into this reason if we’re ever going to uncover real reasons in reaching unreached people, and if we’re ever going to undo the damage that has been done.

So let’s do that.

Defining Terms

When I say Millennial, per Pew Research I’m referring to anyone born between 1981 and 1996. Yes, a lot of these people have children now and are not teenagers. No, these are not the youth of the nation anymore. Yes, we are America's workforce now and are in effect today’s boomers of yesterday.

When I say Gen Z, I’m referring to anyone born after 1997. These are 15-27 year olds now. I can’t even believe that Gen Z has grown up. My nieces are in this generation and it’s crazy to me. A baby I once held as a college student is now #adulting. Unreal.

Diving into the Reason

I’m a Millennial. And I grew up in church. So you might be wondering, how is it that I can be saying that Millennials were never part of the church. Isn’t that a contradiction?

No it’s not and here’s why.

When I was brought to church by my parents or with my parents, or whenever I was dropped off at some youth gathering, I was never part of the church.

In last night’s discussion as we were reminiscing on our pasts, our friend reminded me of something I had long forgotten. As kids we would refer to church as “Big Church.”

Ice cream socials, pizza parties, and sleepovers at the church happened. Trips to theme parks may have happened. Lots of activities happened. And while Big Church was going on, we were sequestered in our own youth rooms of small, medium, and gigantic sizes hearing different messages (often about not having sex, or the end times/rapture, or watching funny videos, or something).

As I thought about it last night, and into this morning I realized that an entire generation of kids that grew up going to church were never included into the family of God throughout their church attendance. After Youth Group ended, we all grew up. Many of my peers who grew up with parents who attended church did not continue to go to church. A small few may have found something like Cru or Intervarsity in college, or maybe a college ministry to attend. But the many never returned.

What I’ve said so far is anecdotal. This is my experience, and it’s personal and it doesn’t speak for everyone by any means. But it is a trend, or a pattern that I have encountered often when speaking with Millennials who have deconstructed their faith and no longer attend church.

And this general trend has caught my attention to see something larger at play.

The Big Picture About Big Church

According to a survey conducted in 2021, with each successive generation we’ve had declining church attendance.

What this graph doesn’t highlight very well is that with each of these generations, it isn’t the kids who choose to go to church less frequently. It’s the parents of each generation who are choosing to do other things besides attend church. And with each passing generation, the next generation of parents goes to church just a little bit less.

What I’m trying to point out here is that the fault and the blame isn’t on the Millennials and Gen Z for not going to church anymore. Typically this is how the news articles and the blogs and such paint it. Something like:

Bad Millennials. Bad Gen Z. You are destroying Christianity! Bunch of snowflakes and pansies. God help us all!

And the fear builds, and the freaking out and yada yada.

But the real blame is on our approach to doing church generally. The blame is on each generation of parents in our parenting.

What happens when we train up an entire generation separate from Big Church? What happens when our children never experience what it’s like to belong to the family?

Well, they do exactly what they were trained to do: they don’t go to church because they’ve never been to church.

Before we act surprised at the recent data, we have to take responsibility for our actions. If we don’t view an entire generation as part of our church family in the first place, then we can’t act surprised when they don’t want to be in the family.

It’s our fault.

This is on churches.

This is on parents.

But if you’re Gen Z or a Millennial like me, we can’t just put the blame on our parents and act like it’s all good. If we do that, then we will continue the downward trend for our own children, and our children’s children. We can’t do this because now it’s on us.

We are occupying the leadership positions now. We are parents now. It’s the Millennials and the Gen Z’s who are taking up leadership roles in churches and who are having and who are raising children who need to begin including children in gathered worship spaces and who will need to send a clear message that includes our children in the family of God.

This is the way if we’re ever going to change the trajectory and alter the course of history.

Now do you see what I mean when I say Millennials and Gen Z never left the church because they were never part of the church?

Separating children for decades from the word and sacraments will ultimately create apostates and agnostics of us all. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me” and in general we’ve taken the position of keeping them at arms length away from Jesus and his words of life. And when we exclude an entire generation from our gathered church family, we exclude them from the table. So we can’t act surprised when they don’t show up to dinner once they’re older. It makes sense.

So there it is. That’s the most overlooked reason why Millennials and Gen Z have left the church.

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If there’s enough interest on this topic I’ll write a follow up post to this one outlining some practical ways churches and parents can begin to include children and send a clear message that the next generation is our church family.

Why Should We Go to Church?

The church our family has been attending just finished a sermon series called, First Things First, named after that famous quote by the renowned author C.S. Lewis.

The woman who makes a dog the centre of her life loses, in the end, not only her human usefulness and dignity but even the proper pleasure of dog-keeping. The man who makes alcohol his chief good loses not only his job but his palate and all power of enjoying the earlier (and only pleasurable) levels of intoxication. It is a glorious thing to feel for a moment or two that the whole meaning of the universe is summed up in one woman — glorious so long as other duties and pleasures keep tearing you away from her. But clear the decks and so arrange your life (it is sometimes feasible) that you will have nothing to do but contemplate her, and what happens? Of course this law has been discovered before, but it will stand re-discovery. It may be stated as follows: every preference of a small good to a great, or partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice is made.

Apparently the world is made that way… You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.

—C.S. Lewis, “First and Second Things,” God in the Dock

One of the main applications from this short, month long series has been to remind those gathered and those visiting that God calls his people to come to church for his glory and our good. This is an important truth, but it’s also important to understand the why behind this truth.

Have you ever wondered why it is that Christians feel the need to wake up early most Sunday mornings to go to church? Or maybe they don’t need to wake up super early because there is a later service to go to, but they still carve out an hour or two weekly to go to church.

Why do Christians do that?

Why make this sacrifice, giving up time and attention to meet with some invisible diety?

People like to say, “The church is a people, not a place.” But it’s more biblical to say, “The church is a people who gather together in a place.” That place could be in a building, but it could also be in a home or down by the river. Christians throughout history have gathered in all sorts of places—from synagogues to strip malls—but the key thing here is that the church gathers.

Defining The Church

The translation for church used in the Bible is “assembly.” Christians assemble together, or gather together regularly and when they do they are a church. Now, this is where the popular phrase, “The church is a people, not a place,” sounds like it’s right at first because when church is over and people leave the church still exists, it’s not like it appears and then disappears until the next Sunday. So assuming this, someone might say I don’t have to go to church to be a Christian any more than going to Taco Bell makes me a taco (I think it was Justin Bieber who said that once).

To that I would say the church doesn’t stop being a church any more than the Avengers stopped being the Avengers after they fought and defeated Loki in the battle of New York. The Avengers assembled, and they were forever known as the Avengers who protect and save the world. When fat Thor sat on the couch eating chicken wings and drinking beer, he was still an Avenger. Once he gathered together again with the others, he proved he was an Avenger.

Christians go to church regularly because that’s what Christians are called by Jesus to do (Mt 18:20; Acts 2:42-47, 20:7; 1 Cor 14:26; Col 3:16; Heb 10:25). When we gather together, we grow together and we encourage one another.

But church is more than just being with other Christians. It’s encouraging to be around others who can pray for you and who are interested in coming alongside you to help you, but that’s not enough to get me out of bed in the morning on a Sunday.

The Best Part About Going to Church

When Jesus founded his church, he made it all about gathering together in his name to hear from him, pray to him, sing to him, eat a meal together remembering him, and yes, love one another too.

Going to church regularly matters because the church is the only place on this earth where we receive something that we don’t get anywhere else. I go to a coffee shop to get energized, I workout at CrossFit for health reasons, I see my psychiatrist to get prescription medication, I go to the gas station to fill up my empty tank (ouch, that hurts these days), and I go to the movies or stream Netflix to be entertained. All of these places are good for general health, wellness, and they meet different needs and wants that I have, but the only place I can go to hear that my sins have been forgiven by Christ’s life and death for me is by going to church. The church shares a message that is unique and different from everything else.

The world expects me to perform. My parents certainly did growing up. Teachers had expectations too. Fraternity life was also by merit—if you do the work and serve the time you get in. Then you grow up and you’re expected to get a job and work hard. What you put in is what you get out. And then I go to church and I hear a message from the Bible that tells me Jesus performed for me so I don’t have to perform anymore. God accepts me and loves me because Jesus was perfect for me.

I hear this news, and for the first time and second time and thousandth time I’m reminded of grace.

Grace is what makes going to church different from going to Taco Bell, or whatever else. Yeah sure, food is great but you generally have to always pay for it. You don’t pay for grace. Grace is given, it’s not earned.

A Glimpse of Going to Church

When you go to church, the church is God’s embassy of grace. It’s the place where we hear the King address his people offering faith, hope, and love. He clothes us with his good works and he feeds us with his banquet meal (delicious bread and fine wine). It’s a place where people embrace one another as equals, as sinners in need of the same Savior who offers forgiveness in his name. It’s a place where children, women, and men are valued and appreciated for who God has created them to be. As we gather in his presence, we are changed from the inside out.

Now, no church on this earth is perfect. Sometimes we go to church and we hear an insensitive comment. Sometimes we go to church and someone ends up backstabbing us and that really hurts and sucks. We get sinned against, and we sin against others even though we are Christians in this embassy of grace. But this gathering, this assembly, the church is a signpost of the future kingdom that is coming. There are moments when the church is pretty glorious and most of all, when other Christians or when the pastor points us to Jesus—the One who gave up everything for us—church is pretty awesome. Jesus always treats us with respect, love, and he never lets us down.