College Kids Leaving Church and Seeking God

I was reading USA Today at Riley's, and one of the articles really caught my eye. It says college kids are becoming less and less likely to be going to church on a regular basis. I guess that wasn't no surprise to me. Something did surprise me, however, and that's got me to thinking that maybe our young people desire spiritual things but aren't finding it in our churches. What's that say about us?

You can check out the story yourself, but here's what it says in a nutshell. This study surveyed more than 14,000 of our kids when they was freshmen in college back in 2004, then turned around and surveyed them again when they was juniors last spring. Seems that more than four out of ten of them started out attending church real frequently. By the time they hit their junior year, barely one out of four were regular church-goers. That's close to half of them falling away.

The thing that was interesting was that these same kids became more concerned about helping others in difficulty. More than three out of five freshmen described it as either very important or essential. When they was juniors, however, more than three out of four them thought it was very important or essential, jumping up by more than 12 percent.

Same thing when it comes to how important it is to reduce pain and suffering in the world. As freshmen, more than half thought it was important. As juniors, two-thirds of them did. It jumped up by 12 percent again.

More than half the freshmen supported the notion of improving the human condition, but almost two-thirds of them felt this way as juniors, about a 10 percent hike.

So while our kids are drifting away from church, they're getting more in tune with making a difference in this world. Some of you may be wondering what questions about "improving the human condition" and "reducing pain and suffering" have to do with going to church. If you're asking that, I'm telling you that's exactly the problem. Maybe our college kids are waking up to the fact that most churches are too busy trying to figure out how to build up their attendance by attracting more middle-class folks and higher and how to move to neighborhoods and parts of our cities that will attract folks with more money.

In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus says the one thing that separates the sheep from the goats, those who are His children from those who aren't, is how we take care of the least of these. The hungry. The thirsty. The stranger. The naked. The sick. The prisoners.

For as long as I can remember, I've heard preachers and other folks carry on about how our young folks are too tempted by the world when they go away to college. All that temptation is more than they can handle and so they never come back, they say. Maybe the real truth is by leaving our churches, our kids are drawing closer to God.