Where Did All the Young Methodists Go?

Young people are, by and large, missing from the church. This realization came one day when I opened my eyes and saw pews full of heads that were, with few exceptions, bald, gray or slightly wrinkled. You may suggest, of course, that a percentage of those gray, wrinkled heads belonged to newborns, but you’d be mistaken. Very few babies attended church that day, and the yells and cries of those that did suggested that they were as surprised by the lack of young people as I was. 

As a Christian young person myself, this revelation baffled me, and I felt it was my duty to communicate this oversight to the rest of the denomination. After several sincere attempts, I was told that churches were already aware of the declining population of churchgoing young people. Church leaders had also observed the gray heads and had produced reports that detailed the phenomenon’s evolution.