What Happened to Going to Church?

Thesis: The Millennial Generation has a different sense of spirituality than previous generations in which they have lost their sense of tradition, have the freedom to choose any religion (or not) and fail to commit or participate in one.

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Millennials no longer attend church services as much because they feel they are no longer bound by age-old traditions passed down by their predecessors. Traditions like attending church as a family, volunteering in a ministry or church events are things now uncommon among Generation Y. They don’t feel that sense of duty their parents and grandparents once did. The reason is because Generation Me was raised to believe that they’re special, that they should do what makes them happy and to not worry what others think. Back then it was the other way around. People would put everyone and everything first before even thinking of themselves. Amy Frykholm argues about GenMe’s ancestors in Loose Connections, “They created and enthusiastically participated in voluntary organizations, including churches. Americans were not constrained by duty or tradition to join churches, but they did” (2). Meaning they weren’t literally forced to but still did because that’s how they were raised. When asked how many millennials were volunteering at our church, Father Jose Salazar who’s a priest at Corpus Christi Catholic Church quickly answered, “Not enough. Overall, the amount of young people volunteering here is at about 15-20%.” I wasn’t surprised, there are a lot of young people that go to our church but the majority of them are forced to attend because of their parents. And from that group, only a third of those people are actually involved in church related activities or groups. Alan Miller and Takashi Nakamura have found in their study, On the Stability of Church Attendance Patterns During a Time of Demographic Change: 1965-1988 that, “Post-WWII cohorts attend church far less frequently than their predecessors” (8). Alan Miller is a member of the Faculty of Letters at Hokkaido University located in Sapporo Japan. Takashi Nakamura is faculty of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics located in Tokyo, Japan. Miller and Nakamura used a survey ranging from the year 1972 to 1990 called the cumulative General Social Survey along with other studies from the past, all focusing on church attendance among Americans nationwide. Miller and Nakamura come to find that, “…the baby boomers appear to be no different from previous cohorts in that increased age leads to increased religiosity. Although as a cohort they attend church far less frequently than their predecessors, results show that as they age they display the expected increases in church attendance” (7). Could it be possible that Generation Y will also attend church more as they age? Or could it be that they want to be traditional just like their parents? When asked if he noticed an increase or decrease in attendance by millennials over the past few years, Father Salazar happily said, “I’ve noticed an increase in attendance because I think that more and more people want to have those traditions back and they also want to feel more like their parents.” It could be maturity kicking in for the millennials. Nevertheless, they’re still being raised to do whatever they feel is right for them.