Churches need to understand what they are doing wrong in order to stop more young Christian adults from leaving the Church.
This was the appeal made by Doug Devor, the Director of Christian Education at Second Presbyterian Church, in his guest post on the Newark Advocate.
In his article, the pastor outlined what he thought were the six main problems of the Church in dealing with the younger members of the flock.
Devor, who arrived at his conclusions after reading David Kinnaman's book "You Lost Me," said that most of the answers given by respondents to the question of why they are leaving the church pointed to the inflexible position of the church on certain issues.
"Their answers have nothing to do with them. It has to do with us. The data collected from these young adults shows that the reason they left is the church's fault and not their own. The implication is that we are doing something wrong," he said.
In his post, Devor said there was a need for the church to do away with exclusivity, and become more open minded, tolerant and accepting of the flock if its wants the faithful to stay within its folds.
The pastor also criticised what he perceived as the church's overprotectiveness and suggested this was stifling young Christians into thinking that they are unable to be themselves and "take imaginative risks" when it comes to expressing their faith.
At times, the church shows a tendency to focus on the numbers attending its programmes rather than the depth of discipleship that the faithful experience as a result of these activities.
There is also the perception of church as anti-science.
"As the church we need to help foster the idea that science and faith are not incompatible," Devor said.
Young Christians also sometimes feel like the church is repressive, according to the pastor.
"As the church we need to focus less on the rules that people should follow and more on the grace that Christ provides," he said.
He suggested that the church give young people room to doubt and answer the hard questions about their faith on their own.
According to Devor, in order for the problem of declining youth attendance to be fixed, religious leaders like himself should fully understand and recognise the problems of those who are leaving the Church.
"Once we know what the problems are, we can ask for God to help us fix them," he said.
