Overview.
The religious landscape in the United States has undergone massive shifts in recent decades. The number of U.S. adults who now identify as “nones” has more than doubled since 2005 and now makes up ⅓ of the population, largely driven by massive increases of young people rejecting institutional affiliations. At the same time, the number of self-identified Christians has fallen dramatically along with membership and church attendance numbers(1) while self professed spirituality has increased(2).
This environment raises significant concerns for many current models of congregational life. Chief among the questions is what happens when Nones start having children. Historically, the church has relied on parenting as a pathway back into the faith for adults who maybe stopped attending during their late teenage years and into their twenties. This theory held for much of the 20th century when the lack of engagement in early adulthood was less about rejection and more about competing life events such as university life, moving to new towns and cities for work, increased individual freedom, dating and finding a partner, etc.
In fact, I’ve had lead pastors of major churches tell me that they basically don’t have anything specific for people in their twenties because, “they’re all going to come back when they have kids anyway.”
Increasingly, though, that just doesn’t seem to be the case. A generation of people who have explicitly rejected institutional forms of religious expression are very likely to raise their children differently when it comes to religious and spiritual formation.
One thing that remains constant is that despite the changes in religious affiliation, attendance, and identification in recent decades, families and parents remain the single most influential predictor of faith identity for young people.
But just what those parents will be influencing their children toward and how they plan on doing that influencing remains an open question.
There is no currently no national research and data collection focused on Young Adult Parents that is actionable and can guide the next decade of efforts to attract and retain the next generation of parents and children.
TryTank and a coalition of denominational leaders are coming together to better understand how all of these changes are impacting young adult parents (YAPs). Our first step in this direction is a nationally representative survey of 3000 adults aged 25-39 who either have children or plan to have children conducted in October 2023(3).
(1) https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/12/14/about-three-in-ten-u-s-adults-are-now-religiously-unaffiliated/
(2) https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/09/06/more-americans-now-say-theyre-spiritual-but-not-religious/
(3) Centiment panels were used with weighting for gender and margin of error of +/- 3%.
This environment raises significant concerns for many current models of congregational life. Chief among the questions is what happens when Nones start having children. Historically, the church has relied on parenting as a pathway back into the faith for adults who maybe stopped attending during their late teenage years and into their twenties. This theory held for much of the 20th century when the lack of engagement in early adulthood was less about rejection and more about competing life events such as university life, moving to new towns and cities for work, increased individual freedom, dating and finding a partner, etc.
In fact, I’ve had lead pastors of major churches tell me that they basically don’t have anything specific for people in their twenties because, “they’re all going to come back when they have kids anyway.”
Increasingly, though, that just doesn’t seem to be the case. A generation of people who have explicitly rejected institutional forms of religious expression are very likely to raise their children differently when it comes to religious and spiritual formation.
One thing that remains constant is that despite the changes in religious affiliation, attendance, and identification in recent decades, families and parents remain the single most influential predictor of faith identity for young people.
But just what those parents will be influencing their children toward and how they plan on doing that influencing remains an open question.
There is no currently no national research and data collection focused on Young Adult Parents that is actionable and can guide the next decade of efforts to attract and retain the next generation of parents and children.
TryTank and a coalition of denominational leaders are coming together to better understand how all of these changes are impacting young adult parents (YAPs). Our first step in this direction is a nationally representative survey of 3000 adults aged 25-39 who either have children or plan to have children conducted in October 2023(3).
(1) https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/12/14/about-three-in-ten-u-s-adults-are-now-religiously-unaffiliated/
(2) https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/09/06/more-americans-now-say-theyre-spiritual-but-not-religious/
(3) Centiment panels were used with weighting for gender and margin of error of +/- 3%.
