do you know any young Christians

[zope]

MIL (in her 60s and religious) recently came to stay with us and I accompanied her to church when we got there i was really shocked by how few people under the age of 60 there seemed to be to the point where I (now in my mid 40s) felt young again. There were a number of small children with grandparents but virtually no one age 10-60. I haven’t been to church since I was a child myself so I was quite taken aback, is this what most churches are like nowadays or was this a one off. Do you personally know any young as in teenagers or in their 20s/30s Christians and do they have many friends who are also Christian? I would honestly be interested?

@OMG12 it is (as is often the case) more complicated than that.
Religious practices over the millennia have taken different stances on their interpretation of passages in the Bible. It is perfectly compatible with the Christian faith to welcome all people into the Church, to accept them and to love them as fellow humans.
What they keep in their pants and where they choose put it are their own business.
If the church banned all the sinners, nobody would be left, that's why we have grace.

Trouble is alot of churches still think it is their business

They don't approve of any sex out of marriage or even masturbation and interpret the scriptures in this way

I know some religious people who are catholic/Christian.
They range from 16-40 something.
I do also have older relatives in their 80s who believe.
Out of everyone I know only 1 attends church.

That's why I'm glad the C of E is at least beginning to open up conversation around these subjects. A church which continues to reject people who commit the Wrong Kinds of Sin will quickly find it has a dwindling and aging congregation (as many churches do.
Young people will join churches that listen to them, that accept them and that show them respect and love.

Most churches are not like the one you visited! Our church has all ages: babies, chidren, teens, young adult, mif-life, retited.
Is this the church your MIL normally attends, or has she just gone this week as its close to you? If it's the latter, maybe find a different church to take her to next time

Yes quite a few, but they all go to charismatic type churches, even charismatic Anglican. Organ playing hmynbook type churches not so many.

[quote InMySpareTime]@OMG12 it is (as is often the case) more complicated than that.
Religious practices over the millennia have taken different stances on their interpretation of passages in the Bible. It is perfectly compatible with the Christian faith to welcome all people into the Church, to accept them and to love them as fellow humans.
What they keep in their pants and where they choose put it are their own business.
If the church banned all the sinners, nobody would be left, that's why we have grace.[/quote]
It obviously is a lot more complicated than that, a lot of what we think we know about Christianity has no or little basis in the scriptures. But then what we are left with is guess work of (usually) men, doctrines designed to enable certain social conventions, adaptations of existing myths designed to facilitate conquests etc.

Presumably it’s the latter which you think should/could be changed? But many of the issues that the church faces such as adultery (divorce and “living in sin”), gay relationships (Leviticus 18:12) etc have been argued (rightly or wrongly) by the church as Gods word forbidding certain things. Or are we arguing hermeneutics?

I’m genuinely interested in how the church is justifying a change of views. Is there any document setting this out in detail produced by the CofE great and good?

It’s obviously not the first time something like this has happened over the millennia but interesting to see how society shapes religion perhaps even more so than religion shaping society.

I'm mid-30s, I go to Mass and take my 4-year-old. DH isn't religious so doesn't come.

There are a few families, but I'd say over half the congregation is 60+, which is a shame.

I know plenty in their 20s and 30s. I think there's a vast difference between being religious, identifying as a Christian, etc and being a church goer.

My church has a lot of children and young people. We have a lay ministry and a huge amount of time and effort is put into the children and youth organizations.
We loose a lot of young people from 18+. They leave school, dont have to do what their parents say any more and often don't have the faith required to fully commit to regular church attendance.

@OMG12 follow the link I put above. The gist as far as I can see (I'm only halfway through the course) is that the church encompasses many points of view, and the first step to understanding those points of view is to listen receptively to them, in a spirit of openness and understanding, not condemnation.
The church itself hasn't taken a concrete stance on the issues (AFAIK) but is open to hear all views on them, which is definite progress.

Yes, we're in our early 50s now but have been active in church most of our lives. We go to a small baptist church with a huge social justice and anti poverty project attached to it, two of our 3 children chose themselves to get baptised at around 16 and remain active in the church at 20 and 22. Our 18yo thinks we're all off our heads! We met at the Christian Union at university with hundreds of members, he was the president one year.

The young people in our church are in their teens and twenties and mainly from African families who arrived here as refugees. They came mainly from DRC and Zimbabwe, but we also have some Nigerians and a few people from the Middle East. Our worship is lively, our services inter generational and designed to be interactive. It's a great place.

The traditional Church of Scotland is dying, but there are many new churches springing up. It's a shame that the traditional protestant churches haven't learned from this, I think the Catholic Church is much better at it.

Empress maybe you don't know if people attend church or not? I often hear the comment 'I am surprised you go to Church' from people I know., I don't know why, do they expect only a certain 'sort' of person goes to church ? I have a friend who I meet once a month for coffee or lunch, we talk about all sorts of things but Church has never come up in our discussions... until the time she said to me 'I could never be friends with someone who believed in God' ... when I gently challenged her on this and asked why she wanted to be my friend she couldn't really answer......

My nineteen year old was just baptized into the Baptist Church. He started going to his girlfriend's church because it has such a large "College and Career" Group with many varied activities.

Yes, my daughter goes to a C of E school and plenty of the parents and teachers are Christians.

If you're young and believe in God can you explain why?

I think that this is largely due to many connotations / attitudes still remaining in many churches surrounding LGBTQ+, abortion etc meaning many young people feel it is out of touch and can be hard to belong to

I only know one person un my age group who attends a church, he is late 30s and grew up in a very religious family. Other than that only elderly relatives aged 65+

The church I attend has a fairly good mix of ages but probably slightly more over 60, and parents with primary and younger children make up a slightly larger proportion.

The smallest age group would be 16-28 ish.

[quote InMySpareTime]@OMG12 follow the link I put above. The gist as far as I can see (I'm only halfway through the course) is that the church encompasses many points of view, and the first step to understanding those points of view is to listen receptively to them, in a spirit of openness and understanding, not condemnation.
The church itself hasn't taken a concrete stance on the issues (AFAIK) but is open to hear all views on them, which is definite progress.[/quote]
Thanks, I’ve obviously not watched all sessions, but just watched session 4 on sex. I thought the vicar was quite interesting, eg how should we go about interpreting the bible, take into account the original language, cultures contemporary with the writing of the scripture etc. he mentions scholarly debate around this so I’ll see if I can track some of it down.

I do find it really interesting that the church is suggesting more flexible interpretation of scriptures. It will be interesting as to how they move forward, eg if the majority of society accepts Gay marriage then will they allow this in church? If not why not? Interesting times ahead as to how much the church is willing to move away from established interpretation to one accepted by society at large

@lightand

Evangelical Churches of full of younger people.

Other denominations, less so.

This is my experience. And they're growing. And giving the most money to the CoE.

@Carpy899

If you're young and believe in God can you explain why?

Can you clarify what you mean by “God”

There’s a strong correlation between education and atheism. As people learn more about the world, they are less likely to see religion as a valid way to interpret the world. More young people are educated for longer now than older people were. Religion is literally dying.

Out of all my friends & family under the age of 60, I probably would say I know less than 5 people who are practising Christians and go to church. It's extremely unusual in my circle, most of us are atheists, agnostics, and a few who declare there's a god but don't practise or ever go church.

Very heartening to hear this OP. Hopefully the church will die out in the UK soon.