Adventist Millennials: Measuring Emerging Adults’ Connection to Church

Abstract

Numerous research studies have demonstrated an exodus of emerging adults from churches throughout Christian denominations. As the United States becomes an increasingly post-Christian society, studying a Christian community whose identity has largely drawn from a minority position could provide helpful insight into maintaining relevance as Christianity moves into minority status. This paper examines how recent emerging adult graduates of Seventh-day Adventist universities connect with or disconnect from both the denomination as a whole and with local churches in the context of identity, community, orthodoxy, and orthopraxy. Through a two-phased mixed methodology approach, researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with self-selected focus groups of recent college graduates, developed an inductively generated survey instrument, and then electronically distributed the survey via email to recent Adventist college graduates. The results suggested ten themes that require further discussion. Particularly notable is the influence personal religiosity has on the sample's acceptance of Adventist teachings and faith practice, as well as the negative impact participants' media usage and transitory lifestyles have on their connection to local churches. Overall, the majority of the sample identified as connected to the Adventist Church, and even many who appear to have disconnected from the Adventist Church remain engaged in a variety of nontraditional ways. Due to the exploratory nature of the research and the voluntary response sample, extrapolation of the results to a wider population may be limited. However, the findings offer valuable insights and understanding into possible reasons for high attrition rates of young adults from the Adventist Church and provide an important foundation for further research both within the Adventist church and in the wider Christian community. Twelve of the created scales concerning Identity, Community, Orthodoxy, and Orthopraxy had a Cronbach's alpha between 0.814 and 0.942. The three remaining scales (all related to Community) had a Cronbach's alpha of 0.610, 0.768, and 0.776 respectively. This shows that overall the scales had very good internal consistency and accurately measured the variables of interest. Hence, the research instrument created for this study is of value and can be used in future studies as well as serve as a guide to researchers who may want to build on this work.

Generational Change in Religion and Religious Practice: A Review Essay

“…Emerson et al 2010;Lee et al 2017;Bengtson et al 2018). Finally, there are numerous surveys of specific denominations or religious institutions (D' Antonio et al 2001Antonio et al , 2007Byron and Zech 2012;D'Antonio et al 2013;Hardy et al 2014;DeRogatis 2015;Puffer 2017;Jacobs et al 2019). Some of the above researchers have supplemented their surveys with face-to-face interviews of individual respondents.…”

“…Emerson et al 2010; Lee et al 2017; Bengtson et al 2018). Finally, there are numerous surveys of specific denominations or religious institutions (D'Antonio et al 2001, 2007; Byron and Zech 2012; D'Antonio et al 2013; Hardy et al 2014; DeRogatis 2015; Puffer 2017; Jacobs et al 2019).…”

“…Having absorbed this individualistic ethos, Millennials prefer to make up their own minds about what to believe, and they resist dogmatic prescriptions about moral practices (Hout and Fischer 2014;Farrell 2011;Smith et al 2011;Manning 2015;Twenge et al 2015;Twenge 2017;Woodhead 2017;Jacobs et al 2019). Given the slight religious socialization they have received, most are "incredibly inarticulate about their faith, their religious beliefs and practices, and its meaning or place in their lives" (Smith and Denton 2005, p. 131.…”

“…Most of the activities, programs, and worship innovations recommended in the literature require a significant investment of money and staff time. Larger congregations are more likely to have access to these resources, and several studies have found that a congregation's size is indeed proportional to its success in attracting young adults (Sahlin and Roozen 2013;Jacobs et al 2019). But larger congregations may also be more impersonal and permit "free riders" (Thumma and Bird 2015).…”

The Influence of Lifestyle, Religiosity, and Prizes on the Decision of Members to Choose Takop

“…The purpose of the existence of Multi-Business Cooperatives is to provide assistance to its members, not only limited to materials or money, but assistance in personnel, training, socialization, and business management of its members. In terms of marketing, for example, the management of a joint cooperative with its members who have the same line of business work together in terms of marketing their goods/services for the purpose of increasing income, for example the merchandise of its members is assisted by the cooperative in trading with appropriate and agreed benefits [2].…”