I’m still waiting to hear from some young adults who have reached out to me, so I don’t want to get into the bulk of my reflections just yet. However, I do want to begin this conversation with some general observations I’ve noticed when discussing why young adults have left – or are leaving – the Church of the Nazarene.
For those unfamiliar with what this is, see this Facebook Post:
Many books, articles, and blogs have been written on the subjects of young adults and their relationship with their faith. My intention here is merely to express some of the sentiment behind why young adults are abandoning the Church of the Nazarene specifically, rather than to try and engage with the broader conversation that’s been done to death.
With that, here are some commonalities among young adults who leave the Church of the Nazarene:
1. It has to do with District and General leadership
Several of the people who shared their stories remarked on either disinterest by, or lack of accountability of, church leadership as a major motivator behind leaving. While several people had negative experiences at the local level (whether their pastor or lay-people were verbally/emotionally/spiritually abusive), it often reflected more on the District as issues tended to go unaddressed by those in higher positions.
In the Church of the Nazarene, each local church is comprised of a church board that oversees a lot of church activity. Whenever there’s an issue with a pastor or lay person, one of the first places to go is that local church board. But, if the local church board either can’t or won’t address abuses within that church, where do you go? The answer: the District.
Unfortunately, District leadership seems to have become stale in its interest towards handling local church issues. At least, that’s the sense one gets when hearing young adults share their stories. Either the District(s) ignore clear abuses happening within local churches, or they exacerbate them by siding with those who are committing the abuses (as they unfortunately tend to be pastors or other leaders).
There are many people with whom I conversed – most often licensed ministers – who shared instances of being treated negatively by their District. In every single one of these cases, there was no accountability; no one would listen to the young adult, no one even bothered to talk with District leadership, no one attempted to be an advocate for those young ministers who felt – or were overtly – slighted and snubbed by their leaders.
It’s true that Districts tend to operate autonomously, for the most part. Sometimes, this is a great benefit, as the lack of direct oversight means a lot of room for creativity in engaging local cultures and demographics. However, it also creates a breeding ground for corruption, as District leaders exercise more and more direct influence and control over their own boards and oversight committees; flooding them with “yes men” and pushing people out who hold views not in-line with their own. Such a culture creates vacuums of silence when it comes to the neglect and even direct harm to young ministers’ spiritual, emotional, and even financial health.
[Notice how many young adults are actively involved at the District level and participate in serious conversations. More often than not, Districts spend a lot of time talking about young adults, and not nearly enough time talking with young adults (except for when they host 1 conversation a year so they can brag about it in their annual reports). Some may respond, “We don’t have any because they never try for district positions.” That may be the case, and there’s probably a good reason they don’t want to be involved.]
The second part of this is General leadership. What happens when there’s an issue with the District itself? Answer: you go to the General leadership (to be fair, this is a little more complicated). Frankly, General leadership really only serves to send out publications and hold organizational meetings. Unless there’s an issue like a District Superintendent having an affair or embezzling money, the worst that will ever happen is probably just a phone call or a strongly worded memo.
Truly, I’m kind of making that last part up, because I know of no situation where the General Leadership ever stepped-in and did anything remotely close to disciplinary. It’s a very hands-off approach, so basically the Districts are given wide berth to do whatever they want – which they do. (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but my point here is that young clergy are often mistreated by their District Superintendents and there’s no way for the problems to be addressed)
I also list this subject first, because aside from one or two individuals, every single young adult who shared their story discussed obvious mishandlings by their District leadership as a critical reason for leaving the denomination. At the very least, there’s a near-universal sense that District leaders don’t care about young adults, and they especially don’t care about young adult clergy.
It’s sad, really. In many instances, all that’s needed is for District leadership to listen and at least attempt to do something. Unfortunately, there appears to be a growing trend of those in our church’s leadership behaving more like secular CEOs than church leaders. And young adults aren’t going to tolerate being treated like low-level employees for very long.
2. It’s a long, reluctant process
This one surprised me a little bit. I assumed that at least half of my respondents would have told me something like, “I left because they refused to ordain me.” Instead, what I heard was that it was a long series of events that went on for extended periods of time, and for several years in some cases.
As much as young adults are framed as being “flaky” and non-committed, when it came to leaving the Church of the Nazarene many of them held on for as long as they could. In the end, it often became a matter of, “I just can’t deal with this anymore.” And, as they left for another denomination, be it by way of letting their membership lapse or turning in their credentials, it was never a jubilant moment; rather, it was a sense of relief after an exhausting journey.
Somewhat related to this is the fact that, out of everyone I conversed with, none of them expressed happiness or joy at the idea of leaving the Church of the Nazarene. They wanted to remain. In most cases, they tried their best to make it work by way of attempting to initiate dialogues and find common ground. But in the end it was more a matter of “I didn’t abandon the Nazarene Church; the Nazarene Church abandoned me.”
3. It begins with a question (or two or three)
Similar to the beginning of the previous point, the process young adults expressed in their journey out of the Nazarene Church didn’t start with some catalytic moment. It’s not like they were sitting in a church service and the pastor said, “Anyone who plays video games or wears capris to church is going to Hell!” And then they got up and stormed out of the building, never to cross the threshold of a Wesleyan-Holiness church ever again.
Instead, the journey out of the denomination almost universally began by simply asking a question.
“Why do I struggle with anxiety as a pastor?”
“Why does it seem like the Church of the Nazarene disagrees with certain beliefs held by the early church fathers?”
“What is the Church of the Nazarene’s position on LGBTQ subjects?”
“What if we engaged with, and loved our community in a way that won’t always lead to numerical growth?”
Something else that surprised me as I reflected on my conversations was that the tension felt by young adults wasn’t because of the answers they received to these questions. That could be understood, certainly. For instance, one could easily imagine a young adult leaving because they were told – in response to the LGBTQ question – “we believe transexuality goes against God’s created order for human sexuality.” And, if the young adult is pro-trans, we could understand them leaving the denomination on the spot. However, that wasn’t the issue.
Instead, the problems arose because no one wanted to engage the questions. Several people told me how frustrated they were that their questions were either ignored, derided, or treated as infantile.
“Why do I struggle with anxiety as a pastor?” Answer: I don’t know, you’re probably just messed up.
“Why does it seem like the Church of the Nazarene disagrees with certain beliefs held by the early church fathers?” Answer: Doesn’t matter.
“What is the Church of the Nazarene’s position on LGBTQ subjects?” Answer: Go ask someone else.
“What if we engaged with, and loved our community in a way that won’t always lead to numerical growth?” Answer: [404 page not found]
Obviously I had a little fun with that last answer, but those were real questions asked by young adults and they were all met with closed doors or open ridicule for even wanting to discuss the subject. Not only that, but when the young adults I talked with asked questions, it was never an attempt to “rock the boat” or be edgy. Those questions came from places of genuine curiosity and attempting to better understand themselves and their faith tradition.
Even more unfortunate is the fact that the questions being asked were never asked one time to one person. They were asked to multiple people, at multiple different times, and it was a long series of exploration that lay-leaders, pastors, and others either continually refused to engage or continually engaged in unhealthy ways.
What began as an honest question during a meeting with their pastor ended up being the first stage in a process that led them out of the denomination.
In short, the universal consensus from my respondents was that the major issue facing the Church of the Nazarene when it comes to young adults is not just a failure of leadership (though that is certainly true), but a failure of the system as a whole.
These are just my early observations, and ones that I personally resonate with deeply and have my own experiences with. I hope these can help to shed some light on why our denomination is bleeding young adults, or at the very least help articulate what others are feeling.
Strait Talk 