From sharing circles to house churches, young people are transforming worship
It’s a familiar, even tired, story: Young people have turned away from religion, probably for good. They’re skeptical, jaded, plain uninterested. As congregations shrink, spiritual leaders wring their hands, wondering how to attract the next generation into the pews. Meanwhile, popular culture writes and rewrites religion’s obituary.
But that doesn’t mean young people have stopped asking the big, age-old questions, which, at their heart, are “religious questions,” says the Rev. Benjamin Perry, a minister in his early 30s at Middle Collegiate Church in New York City.
“‘Who am I? Why am I here? How do I know that what I do has value?’ Those kinds of questions young people are absolutely asking,” he says. “They’re just not looking [for answers] in all the same places that people did 30 years ago.”
Mr. Perry’s church describes itself as “a multicultural, multiethnic, intergenerational movement of Spirit and justice, powered by fierce, revolutionary Love, with room for all.” Services weave together traditional hymns and biblical reflection with hip-hop, jazz, and
