Are Kids Too Busy For Sunday School?

bible-LOGO4

Are Kids Too Busy for Sunday School?
The myths, excuses, and erroneous assumptions about “kids these days”,
and some surprising conclusions based on actual survey data and research.
by Neil MacQueen, www.sundaysoftware.com

You are welcome to copy/excerpt this article for local church use. I am a Presbyterian minister, Christian education specialists, software developer, and Sunday School teacher. I’ve led the big groups and struggled with the small ones. I’ve revamped curriculum and revitalized programs. Along the way I’ve “tried on” most of the excuses which are about to be debunked by *gasp* -data. While all statistics can be debated, at the very least, those presented in this article are meant to open up the discussion, challenge cherished and often false assumptions, and suggest new challenges.

<>< Neil MacQueen, www.sundaysoftware.com

The links were working when this article was first published a few years ago. Many have since gone dead as is the nature of site and links. Try searching at the site’s main home page or google.

Sports? Travel Teams? Single Parents? Divorce? Sleeping in?

Too much homework? Not enough free time? Fewer kids in the population?

THE GREAT EXCUSE:

“Kids these days are involved in so many things that they don’t have time for Sunday School.”

Wish I had a nickel for every time I heard this excuse for why kids don’t come to Sunday School or fellowship, or ________. (insert your event here).

The question is: IS IT TRUE? Are kids really “too busy” ?

After hearing this excuse ad nauseum, I decided to see if there was research to support this popular excuse.

What’s funny is that even after sharing some of the data, I still have people falling back on the old excuses. It has become almost GOSPEL that “kids these days are over-scheduled.” That “travel teams and sports are taking kids away from the church.” Several newspapers around the U.S. have run stories about how “sports on Sunday” are pulling kids away from church. Interestingly, many of those articles are wire reports, picked up by local papers and run with local anecdotes, without ask “is it true?”

The Blind leading the Blind.

We live in an “ain’t it awful” world where pet theories about why this, and why that get turned into FACT by reporters, talk show hosts, authors selling books, bloggers, and church people looking for EASY EXPLANATIONS.

This isn’t new. For decades I’ve heard church professionals grasping and guessing at the reasons for the decline in their Sunday Schools. Many have bought into conventional wisdom because they lack answers. And some have bought into the easy answers because it excuses their poor performance. I hear it from the church parents themselves, as if filling their kids schedules with extra-curriculars is a requirement instead of a choice.

Who’s to Blame?

Depending on who you talk to, the problem is “busy kids” or “parents not spending time with their children,” –or a general decline in church attendance. “The Secular Culture” is often blamed. A few will date the decline to the removal of prayer from schools. Lately it has been “sports on Sunday.” [Notice how FEW blame the lousy ‘product’ many churches pass off as preaching and ministry, but that’s another article!]

Update: Recent surveys show increasing numbers of “unchurched” and agnostic people in the US. But while the proportion of “unchurched” has grown somewhat, the total number of people identifying themselves as “Christian” has not declined that much because the US population continues to grow. Thus, can’t blame the “growing numbers of unchurched” or “increasingly secular society” ….because that society continues to be full of alleged Christians.

But do “busy kids” or “kids playing sports” really translate into un-churched kids?

The answer is “Yes”, “busy kids = unchurched kids”, …. if we want to believe it. But the answer is “No”, if we look at the stats and into the mirror.

One problem is that up until now we have only been waging a war of words and anecdotes in the church. As easily as some can cite dramatic examples of families trading church for sports and sleeping in, I can counter with my own personal anecdotes that. “your kids are busy, but they go to church.”

Disturbing Facts:

My older teen works at the mall, takes honors courses, and has a boyfriend, –but she goes to church.

My middle daughter belongs to school clubs, but she goes to church.

My youngest plays select travel soccer with its practices and travel game schedules, but she goes to church.

I’m busy, I work a 50-60 hour week and part of every weekend, and I go to church.

My wife works full-time and she goes to church. And there are more in my congregation just like my family.

So why did the mom the other day, who’s kids are no busier than mine, say they couldn’t get to church very often?

Well…you can’t win an anecdote war. So let’s look at some stats for greater insights…

Why and How did I go out to find the following research?

By nature I’m a contrarian. I don’t readily accept the stock excuses that we in the church have created to support our failures. So I began this investigation by googling. I wondered if there were any statistics about how kids spend their time, including on Sunday. Lo and behold, there were. Then, as I answered one question, I googled other questions. The following is a report of what I found, and my thoughts about what it means.

You may also be interested in “The Real Life Benefits of Going to Church” …based on actual research.

The Research into What Are Kids Doing with Their Time

Yes….there’s actually IS a bunch of research out there.

In 1997 a study was conducted by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research on 3,500 children nationwide to determine how they spent their time. This study was widely quoted in venues such as Newsweek, Time and the Associated Press. Excerpts from it can be found all over the Internet.

Here’s a simple chart of the results. It breaks down the estimated average number of hours and minutes children spend weekly in major activities.

Activity	Age 6-8	Age 9-12
Sleeping	70 hrs, 44 minutes a week	67:34
School	33:54	33:50
Playing	11:26	8:44
Television	12:38	13:36
Eating	7:58	7:54
Personal care	7:58	7:54
Household work	5:05	6:06
Sports	4:38 !	5:14 !
Visiting	3:25	3:41
Other leisure	2:32	3:34
Studying	2:03	3:37
Church	1:21	1:28
Reading	1:14	1:16
Art activities	0:45	0:56
Family talks	0:32	0:28
Hobbies	0:04	0:09

This chart above suggests we should be ranting about television and school, rather than commitments to sports teams (you’d think this would be especially true given the direction television and the schools seem to be headed, but no, complaining about “sports” is an easier target). Update: I saw some stats recently in TIME magazine about where kids were spending their time, and the stats have not changed that much in the past 15 years. Conclusion: Kids will ALWAYS fill up their time with things to do.

PC magazine’s October 1, 2007 issue there’s a chart comparing internet usage to TV watching in the major countries of the world. For the first time in the U.S.A, internet usage out-paced TV viewing. This stat included adults in the study and time spent on the computer at work. So even as we speak, things are changing. So I wonder why we don’t hear the complainers blaming “Increased Internet Usage” as a reason why people don’t go to church?

Aside: It’s popular to blame this generation of children for SITTING AROUND “playing video games”. When I was their age, we were blamed for sitting around watching TV. Calling “kids these days” lazy is pathetic. The “childhood obesity epidemic” is real, but it’s not because they’re sitting around. It’s because of what their PARENTS and culture are feeding them.

TV, internet, and school ‘usage” aside… maybe the problem is with sports on Sunday(?)

This seems to be the knee-jerk conclusion. Problem is, the stats don’t support the conclusion.

According to a 2003 study by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 61.5% of children aged 9–13 years do not participate in any organized physical activity during their non-school hours. Worse: 22.6% do not engage in any free-time physical activity.

This means if you’re going to complain about sports in general as your church program’s major competition, you can only use it as an excuse for 38.5% of your kids.

Ok, in your hyper-hockey or soccer community –maybe 50% are participating in organized physical activities after school. But are all 50% playing year round? – and on every Sunday morning? HIGHLY doubtful.

You might have a few kids who always seem to be gone playing sports, but as the study points out, odds are the rest are simply staying away for other reasons mentioned later in this article.

ASIDES:

Who Thinks Our Scheduling is Smart?

Can you imagine planning a weekly church event for all your adults at 1 pm every Sunday? No, you can’t. Then you’d really come up against sports. So why in some communities where Sunday morning sports ‘may’ be a serious competition, do we plan Sunday School exactly at a time they can’t come? Excuses, in my humble opinion, are often the last resort of those who don’t care enough to change.]

By contrast we know for SURE that 43% American adults do NOT attend church in a typical weekend. (Barna Research, 2002 Survey). Why then the backlash against kids in sports? Because in some ways kids and sports are an easier target to blame. [Yet rather than complain about sports, some churches are creating sports ministries. They are trying to meet the needs of their student-athletes, and helping young athletes see their sportsmanship as an opportunity to demonstrate Godly values. And others are creating more flexible schedules for kids rather than the “all or nothing” proposition of Sunday at 9 a.m.]

Peter Got Out of His Upper Room

Four times a year my daughter’s soccer team would join with dozens of other soccer teams and descend upon a community for a weekend tournament. Never once have I seen a church set up a tent next to the concession stand and offer Sunday morning services, coffee or a donut to traveling families. In rethinking Sunday School, we need to look at ways to “move the mountain to Moses” in some churches, communities, and times of the year. Acts Chapter 2 is about GETTING OUT IN THE CROWD, instead of expecting the crowd to come to you.

So if it’s not sports, then, who or what’s to blame?

Maybe it’s “all the moms working outside the home that we have these days” ???

Nope.

Chew on this “stat”-ement:

“Contrary to popular belief, the increase in female labor force participation has not led to a decrease in the amount of time children spend with their parents,” says John Sandberg, sociologist at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research (ISR), the world’s largest academic survey and research organization.

“Even though parents, and especially mothers, may be busier than ever, many seem to be managing to fit in more time with their children than an earlier generation of parents did.”
http://www.umich.edu/~newsinfo/Releases/2001/May01/r050901a.html

Maybe its a general lack of parental involvement in the lives of children?

Nope. According to the University of Michigan study, children between the ages of 3 and 12 in two-parent families spent about 31 hours each week with their mothers in 1997, compared with about 25 hours in 1981. Time spent with fathers increased from 19 hours to 23. In general, parents and kids are spending MORE time together these days!

SO CAN WE PLEASE STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT “PARENTS NOT SPENDING TIME WITH THEIR KIDS LIKE THEY USED TO”? Today’s parents are spending MORE time than my parents did!

(As an Ohio State grad it’s killing me to keep quoting that school up north. But their research prowess is famous and ongoing.)

OK, so maybe the issue is all the “single parent families” we have these days…

The answer depends on where you live and the income level of your single parents. In the year 2000 Census, 19 million kids lived in single parent households. In 1970 8.4 million kids lived in single parent households. The proportion of children living in single-parent homes doubled between 1970 and 1998—from 12% to 28%. However, if in your area the standard of living/income is at or above the national average, you probably have fewer single-parent households than these overall statistics reflect. Why? The sad truth is that nearly half of single-parent families live in low income neighborhoods and low income rural areas. 4 of 10 children living with single parents are living below the poverty line. If you’re from a white, middle-upper middle class church, an “increase in single parent households” is probably not much of a problem. And there are no stats that say “single parent moms” go to church less than two-parent households.”

Maybe the problem is “all the divorces these days.”

Not really. According to the US Census, there were roughly one million divorces granted in 1975. In 1998 there were 1,135,000. Given the increase in overall population, that means there were actually fewer divorces in 1998 then in 1975. Yet in 1975 many Sunday Schools were very well attended, so “divorce” can’t be blamed, though it’s certainly a stressor.

Yeah, but nowadays there are fewer children than there used to be, –right?

Nyet. In 1960, 36% -or roughly 63 million out of a total population of 177 million was under the age of 18.
In 2000, there were roughly 70 million people under the age of 18 in the U.S., but they made up a smaller proportion of the total population (26%) because people are living longer and having fewer children. We have more kids in this country now than in 1960. It’s just that the proportions have changed.

This is why the Catholic church is growing…because Hispanic Catholics have higher birthrates than White Protestants.

Maybe its the TYPE of sporting activities kids are engaging in these days?

Think again. The National Sporting Goods Association did a study in 1986, 1990 and 1994 to determine the percentage of children ages 7 and older who participate in various types of sports during that year. They were undoubtedly looking for changes in the culture that would signal a need for different products. Bicycle riding, camping and swimming were the top three sporting activities engaged in by children and youth in ’86, ’90, and ’94. Soccer was 9th on the list after volleyball. Furthermore, the relative percentages of which sports they did the most changed very little from ’86 to ’94 –suggesting no great cultural swing in what children and youth do for activities. (http://nces.ed.gov/pubs98/yi/y9641a.asp). Yes, soccer increased in the 90’s, most of that was in the elementary ages who play on Saturdays, not Sundays.

Maybe it’s all the HOMEWORK kids have these days?

Not according to the Brookings Institution’s Brown Center on Education Policy. In their reported titled “Do Students Have Too Much Homework?” they concluded, “most American students spend less than an hour a day on homework, and that workload is no bigger than it was half a century ago.” (Okay, so some of the latest studies say homework has gotten out of hand, but how does that affect Sunday morning?)

“There is this view in the popular media that there has been this terrible burden of homework on children, and that the homework is increasing,” said Tom Loveless, the director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. “That is not the case.”

Likewise, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a congressionally mandated set of exams given to nationally representative groups of students, shows that the percentage of students who said they had done an hour or more of homework the previous night dropped slightly from 1984 to 1999. By 1999, only a third of the 13- and 17- year-olds in that survey reported doing an hour or more of homework.

The same was true of the 282,000 college freshmen surveyed last year by researchers at UCLA. Only 34 percent of that group reported spending more than an hour each weekday on homework during their senior year of high school. That’s the lowest percentage since the California researchers first put that question on their surveys in 1987.

According to a RAND study, high school students’ homework loads have not increased much since 1948—except for the decade after 1957, when the Soviet Union’s launch of its first Sputnik satellite spurred a push for more rigor in U.S. schools. “There was no golden age for homework that we could find,” said a social scientist in RAND’s Pittsburgh office. “Even at the peak, no more than one in four high school students were studying more than two hours a night.”

Has suburbanization been at the expense of city and rural area churches in the last 40 years?

Are the “old” churches losing Sunday School attendance to the suburbs?

Not really. The 1960, 1980 and 2000 Census data shows near static growth in the numbers of people living in rural areas. The numbers of people in their towns to draw from has stayed the same for most areas. Yes, some small towns have lost population. The growth has been in the cities and suburban populations. But surprisingly, the “depopulation of rural areas” is something of a myth. What has happened is that suburbs have grown, and some populations have shifted to other states.http://www.umass.edu/ecologicalcities/documents/pop.htm (for an inkling of why rural church membership has shrunk for some churches, look further in this article at the “competition from other churches” statistics.) Many small town churches have grown as populations came their way.

The stats ARE showing regional shifts. Churches in Ohio shrinking, churches in Florida growing. But some churches in Florida are not growing with young families. It’s complicated.

Is the issue that parents of children don’t volunteer as much these days like older members?

Apparently not. According to data from the 2000 US Census younger mothers and fathers DO volunteer.

Age Group	Percent of that age group saying they volunteer	Average hours volunteered per month
25-34 years of age	40.5	15.9
35-44 years	50.9	16.1
45-54 years	47.9	14.7
55-64 years	42.9	12.1
65-74 years	41.4	14.1
75 years and over	39.0	19.5

According to a large US Labor Dept study, unemployed women are far less likely to volunteer with an organization than part-or-full time working women. Working women volunteer more than stay-at-home moms. Chew on that one!(Source: http://lmi.ides.state.il.us/lmr/winter_2002/table_1.htm Read it and weep.)

TOWARDS SOME REAL ANSWERS

Sorry, mom, the problem may be you…

According to U.S. Dept of Labor Statistics, the number of women who worked full-time year-round more than doubled from 27.5 percent to 50.2 percent over the past 30 years. Gains were particularly dramatic for married women and for women with children. For example, women with children between the ages of 6 and 17 had a 34-hour average work-week between 1969 and 1998. The percent women working full-time year round rose from 25.8 percent to 48.6 percent.

Earlier in this article I quoted the stat saying parents were actually spending MORE time with their kids. As you’ll see in a moment, that stat should actually read: “more time with dads.” What then does this mean?

Interpretation: Mom has less free time to get kids to and fro, and be a volunteer. She’s exhausted during the weekend (just like dads), and had to compress more of her household responsibilities into the weekend.

THUS, we can assume that Sunday morning has become DOWN TIME for many working moms. My wife works, so I know this is a pressure. Work and the incumbent financial pressures of the times we live in have likely put MORE pressure on family schedules. Add in the kids schedules and need to be driven places that previous generations rode their bikes to, and you get the picture.

The problem may also be “more time spent at work”

According to that same U.S. Labor Dept study, the number of men and women working more than a 40 hour work week has risen between 1979 and 1998. For men, the percentage rose from 35.1 in 1979 to 40.2 in 1998; for women, the proportions were 14.0 percent and 21.6 percent over the same period, respectively. The study noted that the higher the education of the worker, the more likely they were to work longer hours. Take that.. you college educated suburbanites.

Because the number of hours in the day has NOT increased, these numbers tell us this:
“available non-working hours” have shrunk in the past 30 years.
That means more competition for less time.

So while they still have time to go to church activities, they are feeling like they need a break more often. Church’s take note.

Is Church Competing with Dad?

Yes, somewhat. According to the National Study of a Changing Workforce study done over several decades, children of working parents today are getting more time with their fathers and about the same time with their mothers as in 1977. Working women spend three hours with their children, and men 2.3 hours, each workday, compared with 3.3 hours for women and 1.8 hours for men in 1977, resulting in a net gain in parental time.

Put this study and the US Labor study together, and you get a picture of working families -working more, during their peak volunteer years, but still carving out time to be together. Something had to give.

So where are families getting their “extra time” from?

For some, it is coming from their time spent at church.

If the sports-participation & parental statistics are right, then we may indeed be seeing what some call the “cocooning” effect: Families staying home to be together, or at least, do nothing together, especially now that mom and dad work a longer work week than in 1977. It is certainly more socially acceptable to opt-out of going to church when you’re “busy” these days.

The competition may also be “OTHER CHURCHES”

According to the ongoing Harvard “Pluralism” study, in 1997 there were an estimated 163 million people who were members of a church in the U.S. The Roman Catholic Church accounts for 60 million of those adherents. According to Barna Research there are 320,000 Protestant churches in the U.S. One hundred million “members” divided by 320,000 churches = one church for every 312 people in the U.S. Churches went on a building spree in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. New denominations popped up. There are more church buildings now than ever before in the history of our country.

And interestingly, the new churches, by and large, did not grow at the expense of the old mainline denominations. …Yet another excuse bites the dust.

Here’s the Data:

According to the Presbyterian Department of Research, when a member stops going to a Presbyterian church, they are most likely to go nowhere. They just slip into church inactivity. Demographically speaking, the Presbyterians have a birthrate and retention rate problem. And while some churches have closed, especially traditional churches in older cities, many others have opened in the cities, surprise surprise, where there are younger populations.

In most areas of the country, and in a majority of churches, Sunday School attendance is at or near a 40 year low. This would seem to indict the culture (or the churches), but in fact, in poll after poll, Americans have never scored higher on their general sense of spirituality or desire for spiritual understanding and healing. What some polls and pundits are suggesting is that many of church members and non-members are looking beyond the church for spiritual fulfillment, and that we are in a period of de-institutionalized spirituality. But I digress…

The competition may also be with Sleep Deprivation…

According to the National Sleep Institute study, Seventy-four percent of us reported experiencing at least one symptom of a sleep disorder a few nights a week or more. That number was up significantly from 62 percent in 1999 and 2000, and from 69 percent last year. Further supporting this increase is the rise in sales of sleep aids. 15% of us report using them last year. Men get less sleep than women, and the older you are, the more sleep you get.

If you’re Roman Catholic, you have another problem…
According to an ABC poll on Religion in America, Catholic men attend church only 29% of the time, compared to 42% for Protestant men. Yet their denom is growing! How come? Hispanics.

The Competition also includes a shift in American attitudes about organized religion…

Despite widespread efforts to increase church attendance across the nation, the 2005 annual survey of church attendance conducted by The Barna Group (barna.org) shows that one-third of all adults (34%) remain “unchurched.” That proportion has changed little during the past five years. However, because of the nation’s population continuing growth, the number of unchurched adults continues to grow by nearly a million people annually. The research confirms that millions of unchurched people are spiritually active. For instance, one out of every five reads the Bible in a typical week; six out of ten pray to God each week; and during the past year 5% have shared their faith in Jesus Christ with people who are not professing Christians. In fact, nearly one million unchurched adults tithe their income – that is, donate at least 10% of their annual household revenue to non-profit entities.

The church dropout rate among people who define themselves as being somewhere middle-of-the-road on political issues is escalating faster than among those who are either conservative or liberal. And the numbers for Roman Catholics and those who live in the Northeast are even more pronounced.

“A large and growing number of Americans who avoid congregational contact are not rejecting Christianity as much as they are shifting how they interact with God and people in a strategic effort to have a more fulfilling spiritual life.” This trend is very evident among Young Adults and is distinct from the Baby Boomer generation. –Barna.org, Summary of the 2005 Annual Survey.

Mixed Messages?

Could the competition be the result of a “changing definition of Sabbath.” I’ve heard that before.

According to a 1999 survey of Presbyterian pastors, elders and members, their definition of “Sabbath keeping” had evolved to include moments of Sabbath throughout the week (times of prayer and meditation ranking highest among those moments). About 25% practiced “Sabbath-like” activities 2 -3 days a week, and another 25% recognized they were engaged in Sabbath activities on a daily basis. (pcusa.org/research)

Most pastors (63%) said they are very comfortable or generally comfortable with the idea of separating “Sabbath keeping” from Sunday. So maybe the churches and pastors have HELPED to open the door to competition. Whether or not that’s wrong or the correct reason for decline is another matter.

Additional Factors to Consider:

1. Historical trends… Churches often compare today’s attendance to a “Golden Age of Church Attendance” in the 50’s through mid-60’s. But for comparative purposes, the so-called “Golden Age” was rather short-lived. Sunday School as we know it, however, is barely a 100 year old phenomenon. Teaching our faith to our children has taken many forms over the centuries, and will continue to do so in the future. And as will be mentioned below, Gallup Poll surveys of church attendance in 50’s are surprisingly un-golden.

2. We are in a period of general church attendance decline. According to Gallup and Barna surveys, church attendance surged in the late 80’s and early 90’s after a number of years of decline, but began to decline again by the mid- 90’s.

3. We are in a period of changing attitudes about church commitment and the concept of institutional loyalty. This period is sometimes referred to as the “post modern” period. It began in the 1970’s.

4. AND YET, WE LIVE IN “RELIGIOUS TIMES”… according to 2002 Gallup Poll Data, Americans have never felt religion to be more important in their lives than right now. The numbers are virtually the same from 1982 to 2002. 61% of Americans rank religion as “very important” in their lives. This is up from a dramatic “low” in 1941. (Apparently there are atheists in WW II foxholes.) Actually, people’s sense of the importance of religion has increased slightly since 1982. One interesting divide, however, is between women and men. Religion is important or very important to 69% of women, but only 51% of men. (And remember, Dad is spending more time with the kids these days than in past decades).

4. We are in a general period of “well being.” Emphasis on traditional Biblical education and church attendance historically wanes during such periods. Similar patterns are seen in voting turn-out, hot-line ministries, and the historic waves of “revival” ministries. Does this mean that Sunday School could use a disaster of Biblical proportions? 😉

5. Churches of the post-modern era no longer preach the gospel of attendance as a path to piety. Simply put: attendance pins have gone out of fashion. The institutional church has promoted an institution-centered faith, and as the culture has shifted away from organized groups the church has paid the price (witness: lack of membership at Moose, Elk, the Masons, and the PTA).

6. The past experience of institutional religious education left a bad taste in the mouths of many kids in the last several generations who we must now deal with as adults. To put it bluntly, “Some of them are back, and not all of them are buying it.”

7. The quality of many Christian education offerings and worship experiences seems stuck in the past. On this last item I have devoted quite a bit of energy and enthusiasm. In no way am I suggesting that Sunday School should disappear. I believe it must get better, and have worked hard through my efforts with the Rotation Model and Sunday School Software Inc. to make the experience of learning in the church better. The rate of change in our culture has quickened, but the church has not kept up. Musical tastes are a good example of this. Check your CD collection for organ music. Change is not the enemy, complacency is.

8. “Sleep overs” –odd as this might seem, I believe that sleep overs are one of the cultural trends CHIPPING AWAY at Sunday morning attendance. My evidence is only somewhat anecdotal, but I KNOW in the 60’s and 70’s that kids didn’t have nearly as many sleepovers on Saturday night as they do these days. We didn’t celebrate birthdays as festively either. But nowadays, it seems that many of our children have birthday party sleepovers to attend every month. Well then I ran across this tidbit from American Demographics magazine (www.demographics.com), “sleepovers are becoming more common at a younger age.” It seems like such a minor trend, but coupled with other minor trends -it means a small percentage of your potential attenders are out of commission each Sunday. I’m looking for hard research to back this up, but “amount of sleep” is a relatively recent issue.

9. Average Bed Times — And “The Advent of Bedroom Electronics.”

According to a Knowledge Networks/SRI study, 67% of U.S. children have TVs in their bedrooms. According to Belgian research children with a television set in their rooms went to bed significantly later on weekdays and weekends and got up significantly later on weekend days. Children with a gaming computer in their rooms went to bed significantly later on weekdays. On weekdays, they spent significantly less time in bed. Children who watched more television went to bed later on weekdays and weekend days and got up later on weekend days. They spent less time in bed on weekdays. They reported higher overall levels of being tired. Children who spent more time playing computer games went to bed later on weekdays and weekend days and got up later on weekend days. On weekdays, they actually got up significantly earlier. They spent less time in bed on weekdays and reported higher levels of tiredness. Children who spent more time using the Internet went to bed significantly later during the week and during the weekend. They got up later on weekend days. They spent less time in bed during the week and reported higher levels of tiredness. Going out was also significantly related to sleeping later and less.http://www.journalsleep.org/citation/sleepdata.asp?citationid=2324.

Why Teens don’t make it to Sunday School…

A recent study of 3,120 Rhode Island teenagers conducted by Carskadon and Amy Wolfson, assistant professor of psychology at The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., found that 85 percent were chronically sleep-deprived and accumulated a minimum 10-hour sleep deficit during the week. Forty percent went to bed after 11 p.m.; 26 percent said they usually got less than 6.5 hours on school nights. Research has shown that teens are wired to be night owls, but require as much if not more sleep than children.

Sleeping in on the weekends is a matter of health for many teens. Psychology Today’s editor states that, “High school kids average 6.1 hours of sleep a night when they need 9.25 hours to be fully alert all day long the next day.”

Could the problem be the number of teens who can drive?

40 years ago families had fewer cars. Today, teens can “be elsewhere” without having to ask mom and dad for a ride. Just a thought.

Mobility creates choices.

The problem may also be our expectations and double standards.

Few cast aspersions on an adult member who travels for business or work an occasional weekend.
But God help the 10 year old travel soccer player!

The proportion of children attending Sunday School in most churches is routinely higher than the proportion adults attending adult education. But rarely do churches get bent out of shape about adult education. Where the kids are concerned, we seem to beat ourselves and lament.

For example: A church with 250 adult members and 50 children would feel good about counting 125 of the 250 adults and 25 of the 50 children in worship every week at 10:30 a.m. 150 total bodies in attendance would be considered rather successful in most 250 member church. And having an adult class with 25 adults in class at 9:15 a.m. would be WELCOMED by many of those small churches, even though it was only 10% of total number of adults. Yet imagine a Sunday School thinking 10% children’s attendance was a “success.” Even at 25% (13 of the 50 kids enrolled) would generally be considered “too low” by most churches.

The rise of “small group” ministries across the denominations has taught us that adults need small groups that meet a variety of scheduling and spiritual needs. Many churches offer a variety of study and fellowship experiences to adults. But the children are largely offered 9:00 a.m. on Sunday morning -take it or leave it. Most churches do not have children’s fellowships, and those who do typically teach “Bible Lite” -if Bible at all.

It is much easier to join a church as an adult than as a youth. Prior to joining, an adult typically attends two or three optional “coffees & classes” led by the pastor. By contrast, a 14 year old may have a year or more worth of classes, attendance requirements, books to read, a statement of faith to explain, and an interview with the elders to sweat out.

We preach “obey the Sabbath” as a means of leveraging people into Sunday classes. But then go home to mow the lawn, garden, and do lots of other things Moses would frown upon as quite unsabbath like. A reminder of what Jesus said: “Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man.” We need to be careful about pretending to occupy the high moral or theological ground on the “sanctity” of Sunday morning education.

Is the Problem a Lack of Faith?

I believe that’s an easy answer offered by preachers and people without answers. “Lack of faith” does address some of the reasons why people don’t support Christian education or Sunday School. But unfortunately, it doesn’t explain why people in the 60’s and 70’s had higher Sunday School attendance. Few would look back at those decades as “decades of faith.” The surveys done over the years do not give credence to such a view. Some have suggested that belonging to a church was more a part of the “American Dream” back then. It was what “good Americans” did. But those crowded churches and classrooms may, in fact, reflect a selective memory, and/or fewer church buildings at the time. As previously noted, it was NOT the “baby boom” which overcrowded the churches, because there are more children in the US today than in the 1950’s and 60’s.

Well, then, maybe people don’t go to church as often as they used to “back then” ?
Sorry, another myth blown. Gallup Polls have asked Americans since 1957 if they have “attended a church or synagogue in the last week.” In 1939, 41% said yes. In 2002, 44% said yes. In 1957, 47% said yes. The lowest % in the last 40 years was 1950.

The church mom I mentioned at the top of this article had a deep faith. She just no longer associated “having to go” to church with “having faith.”

Is it a diminishing of Institutional Authority over the years?
There are theories that “people respected institutions more back then.” But the Gallup polls, Harris surveys and Barna Research tell us something quite different. They tell us that “the Church” is still one of the most respected institutions in our country. And a HIGHER percentage of Americans claim church membership nowadays than 30 and 40 years ago! (In 1950’s Gallup survey just 49% of Americans claimed church membership. In 2000, 69% claimed church membership.) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/wat/archive/wat011298.htm

However, there is some conflicting data on this subject. In July 2002, Gallup reported that only 66% of American believe Protestant ministers can be trusted. “Confidence in Religious Institutions” in 2002 had sank to 45% – a 20-year low. Those 2002 Gallup results were: 26% had a “great deal” of confidence; 19% had “quite a lot;” 32% had “some;” 18% had “very little.”

Annual Barna surveys show a growing Un-churched population that has a surprising degree of spiritual activity and expressed Christian faith. They’re just pursuing their faith outside the institutions.

Gallup Polls do tell us that the “perception of relevancy” about the Church has changed. In 1957 only 7% thought religion was “old-fashioned and out of date.” By 2002 the percentage believing that was 24%.

It is fair to say that “lack of attendance” is being aggravated by lack of confidence in the church’s ability to make a difference in the lives of their children.

In this respect I do know from personal experience, that one’s OWN experience as a child in the church can inspire lack of confidence in traditional methods. Many parents may indeed be sub-consciously thinking “it wasn’t that good for me so it won’t be for MY children.” In other words, we may be fighting the legacy of 40 years of boredom and mediocrity in the Sunday School and church in general.

Regarding the current level of Bible literacy…. (now here’s a problem)

A 1997 Gallup poll found that 92% of Americans homes owned a Bible, but fewer than half could name the first book of the Old Testament. Fewer than half could name all four Gospels. According to a Professor at Wheaton College quoted in Christianity Today magazine, 1/3 of his incoming evangelical-leaning freshman class didn’t know the Christmas story was found in Matthew, or that Paul was in the book of Acts.

…And these are the people we have to recruit to be Sunday School teachers. Oy Vey.

So what is it?
Why is Sunday School in a funk in so many churches?

The answer is, it’s not ONE thing. It’s MANY.

Excluding the number of “funks” that are locally self-induced by uninspired leadership and a congregation’s overall local decline, the evidence suggests we are losing ground on many fronts:

1) Changes in the culture. If you thought the Baby Boomers weren’t completely in-tune with church, wait until you meet their children –the 18-30 year olds.

2) Increased competition from Media, Family-time demands, and other churches.

3) The growing un-churched but nominally Christian culture providing more “cover” for skipping out on church commitments.

4) A long standing general lack of Bible literacy (or desire for it) has been undermining Sunday School’s main premise –that a Biblical education is important.

5) The Church’s rather monolithic and unchanging approach to programming styles, timeslots and outreach.

These are not new problems. Things have not suddenly grown worse in the last 10 or 20 years.

If Sunday School’s goal was to turn children into faithful adults sitting in our pews, then even the “1950’s and 60’s heydays” could be considered an abject failure. Where are all those kids who sat in our churches in the 60’s and 70’s? A large percentage of them did not return to active membership in our churches. And they did not bring their children with them. So in some very real ways, we are “paying for the sins of our fathers” (and mothers). The ministry they led, the full classes and big youth groups, did not lead to large numbers returning to the church in adulthood.

And those who do come back, are finding the church largely unchanged from their childhood.

All the statistics tell us that those who DID RETURN are different than their parents generation. Their world is different. Their lives have changed. They are working more hours, especially moms, and yet seem to be more intent on spending time with their kids. They are generally more tired on the weekends and they are more mobile. The movement from a manufacturing to service industry has meant more weekend work too.

Those who did return to the church with their children are more willing to “optionalize” commitments such as Sunday school, in part because they are less institutionally loyal than the previous generation. As a generation, parents don’t think Sunday morning Sunday School is EXCLUSIVELY important to their child’s spiritual upbringing. Waking up tired on Sunday morning with the prospect of attending a mediocre experience only helps make their decision to stay home that much easier.

And now we have a church filled and run with aging Baby Boomers.

In modern times, the church has never had such disproportionate demographics, and all those demographics will mean. In the first ever research done on Empty-Nest religious patterns, the Hartford Seminary’s Institute for Religious Studies has released a report states:

Just as family cycle transitions into parenting roles among the baby boom cohort exerted an upward push on worship attendance for this cohort over the last 20 years and helped stabilize overall religious participation rates in the United States over this same period, the inevitable and relatively massive transition of the boomers out of active parenting roles should exert considerable downward pressure on overall levels of religious participation for at least the next twenty years. … Regular attendance for empty nesters is significantly less than for persons with either preteen or teenage children. …Social scientists refer to this phenomenon as “churches by choice” -as a matter of child rearing, not by conviction of faith http://hirr.hartsem.edu/bookshelf/roozen_article1.html

That study was conducted in 1996. If they’re right about the effect of the “Boomers who become Empty Nesters,” the Church is in a SHAKING OUT period through 2016. The Baby Boom Generation is a triple threat. They spiked our attendance when they were young, they drifted back to the church with their own children -but with a different attitude about us, and as soon as their children have left the nest the Boomers will drift off again.

And the demographic groups coming after the Boomers have even less interest in religious affiliation and church attendance and lower rates of volunteerism. (See the findings from the Barna annual survey above.)

A note of caution: Some successful churches don’t feel a sense of urgency about these issues, -particularly those in growing towns. Their numbers are growing, or at least not shrinking. But the fact of the matter is that the trends seen in multiple surveys are affecting EVERY church. Smaller churches feel those trends more significantly. And some of the remedies I’m about to suggest make great sense even in successful programs, because they address the needs of real people in your congregation, or just on the outside of it. Indeed, the time to change is WHEN you’re healthy. The time to close the barn door is before the horse leaves.

Conclusion:

In every age the church faces the same challenge: to step out of our safe upper-rooms, and out into the crowd to share the Gospel in a way that makes sense to THEM, not us. That’s the story of Pentecost.

May the Spirit blow open new doors of opportunity in your congregation, and give you the gifts to see new visions and dream new dreams (Acts 2).

Let’s go.

<>< Neil MacQueen

Neil MacQueen is a Presbyterian minister, Christian educator, President of Sunday Software Inc., and Sunday School curriculum writer.

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