Why do so many young people leave the church?

At 17, I stopped attending church. I’d had doubts about Christianity for a few years, but I didn’t feel safe asking questions at my church. I figured I’d face condemnation for my “lack of faith.†In my 20s, whenever I found the rare Christian who’d converse with me, he or she seemed ill-prepared to offer a basic definition of Christian faith, much less a defense of it. Worse, some Christians dismissed my questions with a condescending, “I’ll pray for you.†For nearly a decade, I remained disconnected from the church.

So I wasn’t surprised when a recent study by LifeWay Research—an organization affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention—found 70 percent of respondents had stopped attending church by age 23. Of those “dropouts†(as the survey called them), 58 percent noted at least one church- or pastor-related reason for leaving. The most frequently cited reasons were "church members seemed judgmental or hypocritical" and "I didn’t feel connected to the people in my church." Additionally, 52 percent said "religious, ethical, or political beliefs" contributed to their departure.

How God used me to unknowingly change a life

I rarely think of myself as a woman of influence. I can barely get my children to listen to me, much less someone not threatened with losing TV privileges. Don’t get me wrong—I’m opinionated, I’m passionate, I’m successful at making my voice heard. But true influence, the kind that motivates people, creates change, and inspires others—well, I just don’t have that. Or so I thought.

Last July, I attended a staff reunion at the Bible camp where I worked during my college summers. I spent six summers there, serving in various roles—cabin counselor, lead counselor, program coordinator—and I loved every second of it. At the reunion, I had a great time catching up with co-workers I hadn’t seen in 20 years, campers I hadn’t seen since they were kids, and staffers I hadn’t seen since I was a kid. We traded the kinds of stories that only come about by throwing 50 college students into the woods for a summer—crushes and pranks and endless silliness. I often felt those years were indulgent. I wish I could say I’d had some noble desire to impact kids for Christ at camp, but, honestly, I was in it mostly for the fun.

Reflections on persistence in the face of conflict

Yesterday, a student came by my office at the university where I teach and asked if I could recommend a way of getting someone she liked out of her head.

“Well, you might find a new boyfriend,†I quipped. “Or a hobby. That seemed to work for me.â€

I was too preoccupied with my own miseries at that moment to advise someone else. I’d just received a rejection on a book proposal and, within the next hour, needed to make an unpleasant phone call, attend a meeting, and get home to my daughters, Charlotte and Lulu.

This superficial, neurotic need to have everyone like me was awfully tiring.

My name is Nancy, and I'm a recovering Nice Person.

As a Nice Person, I rarely said “no,†especially to things I really, really, really didn’t want to do. Because I couldn’t stand the possibility of someone thinking badly of me, I bought vacuum cleaners and encyclopedias I didn’t need. I agreed to activities I had no business doing—heading up a committee, teaching a class, organizing a rummage sale. And I was the first to be asked to bake 47 dozen cookies by tomorrow or chaperone 150 middle-school girls—because I was too nice to say “noâ€!