Young Adults Consider Themselves “Spiritual”

Despite popular reports that young people aren’t interested in spiritual matters, newly released survey data shows the opposite to be true. Some 73% of unchurched 20 –to 29-year-old Americans consider themselves “spiritual,” because they want to know more about “God or a higher supreme being,’ according to the study by LifeWay Research and the Center for Missional Research.  That figure is 11% higher than among unchurched individuals who are age 30 and older.  89% of unchurched young adults say they would listen to what someone believes about Christianity.  That’s 14% more than those 30 and older.

The survey data also revealed opportunities for churches among 20-somethings: 63% said they would attend church if it presented truth to them in an understandable way “that relates to my life now.”  Only 47% of older respondents agreed.

Unchurched young people also want to know the church cares about them.  According to the survey data, 58% of 20-somethings would be more likely to attend if people at the church “cared for them as a person/”

Source: Center for Missional Research, and LifeWay Research.

Losing my religion

67% Americans who say religion is losing its influence on American life.

50% Americans who said this in April 2005

24% Americans who said this in December 2001

The percentage of people who call themselves “Christian” has dropped more than 11% in a generation (from 86% in the ‘90s to 77% today), according to the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS).  But the number of people who claim no religion has nearly doubled since 1990 (8% to 15%).  This category (the “Nones”) now outranks every other major U.S. religious group except Catholics and Baptist.  Much of the non-religious population now resides in the Northern New England, the study found.  “The ‘Nones’ are the only group to have grown in every state of the Union,” said Ariela Keysar, associate director of Trinity’s Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture.

Source: Crosswalk.com, Christianity Today, March 2009 and Gallup