I am about to embark on an experience that I have only heard about. In one month I will be a young-adult member of a local Seventh-day Adventist Church. As a recent college graduate, I am leaving the safe spiritual haven of a vibrant campus with worship geared toward my age-group, amazing music led by talented, practiced groups of peers, and small groups of like-minded young adults who are facing the same daily struggles I do.
It is no secret that the Adventist Church is losing its young people. There is a whole generation missing from the pews of your local church on Sabbath morning. At some point during my time at Union College, I was asked by a visiting seminary professor, “What can we do to save your peers who are leaving the church?”
My instinctual response was “Why are you asking me? I’m in the church.” I am in the church—every Sabbath at my home church during vacations, noticeably one of two or three pew-warmers who have a high school diploma yet no graying hair. All my elementary and high school friends who didn’t end up going to an Adventist school and/or moved away have disappeared from sight. I am in the church—as a young leader, throwing my passion and skills into campus ministries, summer camp, and soon being a teacher for the very institution that is Adventism. My own sister experienced many of the same experiences and had many of the same passions, but they didn’t keep her “in the fold.”
I am in the church, but I know that it may be a struggle to stay in. It is up to me in the next few years of my life not to become a statistic. I expect to face what most young Adventist adults experience when they are released into the “real world”— being thrown into a church family that may worship differently, communicate differently, and be devoid of young people. This is our reality. Young Adventists are walking into churches all over North America and walking right back out because they don’t find people they connect with, a ministry they can get plugged in to, or a safe place where their spiritual needs are met. The pulsating spiritual atmospheres of our colleges have, in a sense, set them up for failure. Our higher-?education institutions aren’t to be blamed, and neither are the local churches. The fact is the church as a whole has a problem—and it isn’t as if we don’t know it. The church, the Adventist church—my church—is trying to keep my peers, to keep me.
Trying . . .
The church is trying to save us
. . . with a youth budget that is one eighth of the decorating committee’s budget in a local congregation.
. . . with the opportunity to be involved on the platform. A cancelled speaker means an available Sabbath for the youth to lead out at the last minute.
. . . by doing things such as buying a projector to use for praise and worship songs that no one in the church knows or is really willing to lead out in.
. . . by creating committees, task forces, and ministries that have the same purpose to save the youth but either don’t realize they do or are too proud to admit they came up with the exact same idea and should really just join forces.
. . . by getting us plugged in to ministry—as junior deacons and deaconesses whose only responsibility is collecting the offering when a “real deacon” doesn’t show up.
. . . by unknowingly creating Adventist meccas in the surrounding areas of our colleges and universities because young adults can’t imagine leaving that sense of spiritual community for reality in a small local church.
. . . by leaving any semblance of a youth group up to the conference youth director or the nearest academy.
If this comes off as a bitter rant, it’s not. It’s what I’ve experienced in my own small-town Seventh-day Adventist church and what my peers live out in theirs.
The thing is, dear church,
I know you’re trying . . . which is why I will not give up on you.
Not Giving Up . . .
I will not give up on my church because I know it is trying. I know that the church knows that it’s losing its youth in droves, and I know that it knows that something needs to be done—but what we’re doing isn’t working. You know why I am still in the church, as my peers flee the scene? The church kept me from leaving
. . . by providing me a handful of dedicated role models who wouldn’t give up on me, who still don’t give up on me.
. . . by placing in my path summer-camp directors, academy teachers, and college professors who trusted me with responsibility and gave me leadership roles so that I would buy into my church.
. . . by requiring RELH 310: History of SDA Church for my major. My professor gave me a new perspective on Adventism and reminded me of the many reasons why I am a Seventh-day Adventist.
It was people. They kept me in the church. And these people are what keep me in the church when I see youth camps closing, academy enrollments dropping, an average of one youth pastor per every conference I’ve lived in, and the church’s budget seemingly allocated everywhere but for its future, for its youth. I know the church is trying, but I don’t know what it’s trying to tell me about my worth when it seems resources are being put everywhere but in trying to keep my peers and me in the church. I see the need for evangelism, for ministerial retreats, and for church building additions, but in 25 more years if we don’t have a church left, what are those things worth? They’re trying, but maybe they are putting their effort into the wrong things.
Finding a sense of community in the church and fostering relationships with fellow believers has been integral in my journey as a Seventh-day Adventist young adult. The key for me was relationship, and it must be for all of us.
Please understand: Having a relationship with Christ is our first priority. Without Him we simply don’t have a church. “For in him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28, KJV).
But in regard to the church, I don’t pretend to know how to fix the “problem.” I do know what saved me from leaving. It’s hard to get rid of something that you are invested in. If a person has a vested interest in a mission, they don’t want to see it fail, or leave it while it flounders.
I am still in the church because I feel a part of the church. The Adventist Church is my church. We young adults are not going to walk away if we feel that the church won’t walk away from us. Plug us in. Support us. Love us. I just ask that you try.
I know you’re trying . . . which is why I will not give up on you.
All that I ask, dear church, is that you don’t give up on me.
____________
Emily Carlson, a 2010 Union College graduate, writes from Kentucky, where she made it through her first year as a young adult member of the local Seventh-day Adventist Church. This article was published September 15, 2011.
