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is your religious community in decline?

Eddi

Panentheist and Psychedelic Cat
Premium Member
Is your religious community in decline?

I'm 37 years old

I am the youngest person who attends my church

Everyone else is much older - 60s or 70s, maybe one or two in their 80s

What's going to happen when all these people die?

There's no younger people joining to replace them

Eventually it will just be me and the minister's dog

I'd say that my church is heading towards decline, even though it currently has a healthy membership in terms of numbers

Is this the case with anyone else here?
 

Samael_Khan

Goosebender
Is your religious community in decline?

I'm 37 years old

I am the youngest person who attends my church

Everyone else is much older - 60s or 70s, maybe one or two in their 80s

What's going to happen when all these people die?

There's no younger people joining to replace them

Eventually it will just be me and the minister's dog

I'd say that my church is heading towards decline, even though it currently has a healthy membership in terms of numbers

Is this the case with anyone else here?

Is there perhaps a need that isn't being addressed that is causing the decline?
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
Is your religious community in decline?

I'm 37 years old

I am the youngest person who attends my church

Everyone else is much older - 60s or 70s, maybe one or two in their 80s

What's going to happen when all these people die?

There's no younger people joining to replace them

Eventually it will just be me and the minister's dog

I'd say that my church is heading towards decline, even though it currently has a healthy membership in terms of numbers

Is this the case with anyone else here?
Not in our area (Space Coast of Florida). Abundant children's and youth ministries. Who know? Maybe you will be the key to growth as you reach out to children or youth? God has designed you with purpose!!
 

Eddi

Panentheist and Psychedelic Cat
Premium Member
Not in our area (Space Coast of Florida). Abundant children's and youth ministries. Who know? Maybe you will be the key to growth as you reach out to children or youth? God has designed you with purpose!!
But you're not in Western Europe :D
 

Eddi

Panentheist and Psychedelic Cat
Premium Member
Is there perhaps a need that isn't being addressed that is causing the decline?
I don't know!

The happy-clappy church down the road has plenty of younger folk in attendence

But I prefer more traditional services

Perhaps it's the style that's the issue?

I don't know

Also, we don't practice evangelism like the happy-clappies do
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
Is your religious community in decline?
No. I'm in Canada, and Hindu. The retention rate most likely is going down within the 2nd and third generation who emigrated in the 70s, but since we have a lot of immigration here, there is a continuous new supply, of people, often very grateful to find a community here. Maybe 4 generations from now that will change. I won't be around to watch.
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
But you're not in Western Europe :D


When I went to England, I visited Hillsong - filled with young people...

Screen Shot 2021-01-28 at 8.25.28 AM.png


Then again. :) you could be the catalyst of change in your church :)
 

Eddi

Panentheist and Psychedelic Cat
Premium Member
When I went to England, I visited Hillsong - filled with young people...

View attachment 47281

Then again. :) you could be the catalyst of change in your church :)
I've always wanted to go to London Hillsong, it's on my to-do list, I've never been to a mega-church before!

Once the pandemic has cleared me and some friends are going to go out onto the streets evangelising
 

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
Hell if I know. Religion in my family is something extremely intimate and personal. Only reason I can talk about it here is the veiled anonymity
 

Samael_Khan

Goosebender
I don't know!

The happy-clappy church down the road has plenty of younger folk in attendence

But I prefer more traditional services

Perhaps it's the style that's the issue?

I don't know

Also, we don't practice evangelism like the happy-clappies do

Yeah, so it might be because you are more traditional. Kids tend to care more about the social aspect of religion than the theology and ritual. I do see the pattern of such a stylistic difference in worship being a barrier.
 

Eddi

Panentheist and Psychedelic Cat
Premium Member
Yeah, so it might be because you are more traditional. Kids tend to care more about the social aspect of religion than the theology and ritual. I do see the pattern of such a stylistic difference in worship being a barrier.
We had a young man who started showing up, but the pandemic killed that off and we don't have contact with him so we can't involve him with the zoom stuff we do so I doubt he'll ever turn up again, in the future
 

Samael_Khan

Goosebender
We had a young man who started showing up, but the pandemic killed that off and we don't have contact with him so we can't involve him with the zoom stuff we do so I doubt he'll ever turn up again, in the future

That is unfortunate. But I also think that people should join for the right reasons. If he is genuinely interested then he will come back.
 

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
Is your religious community in decline?

I'm 37 years old

I am the youngest person who attends my church

Everyone else is much older - 60s or 70s, maybe one or two in their 80s

What's going to happen when all these people die?

There's no younger people joining to replace them

Eventually it will just be me and the minister's dog

I'd say that my church is heading towards decline, even though it currently has a healthy membership in terms of numbers

Is this the case with anyone else here?
Christianity is pretty much dead in Western Europe and the CoE has gone into cardiac arrest in the UK. It's dying in America, too, despite what the media says about Christian power - it's not true. The Christian Right in the US is a bunch of elderly people who will all be dead in the current decade and no one will replace them. Pretty much no one in their 30s and younger in the US cares about it.

My religious community - Germanic Heathenry - is proving to be very popular in Northwestern Europe, the US, and among the Germanic diaspora in general. Odin never gave up on us, and we never forgot him - not completely.
 
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Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
It is a given that even in Catholicism young generations are fewer and fewer and the number of atheists and non -religious is on the rise. But the Catholic youth within a parish is still present, since the church groups favor friendship and unity among the people of a district.
 
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