SDA Growth

[Gregory Matthews]

Those who study the SDA denomination in the United States and in North America are concerned about how it is or is not growing and in addition the extent to which adults and youth are leaving the denomination.

Timothy Floyd is the present Director of Youth & Young Adult Ministries for the Kansas-Nebraska Conference.  He has also taught Religion in the SDA school system.  In addition, he serves the  North American Division as a certified trainer to grow young speakers.

Floyd has written what I consider to be a seminal article, on this important subject which has been published in the current (Vol 45, Issue 4) issue of Spectrum, on pages 34-38.  The article is entitled:  “Growing Young Adventists.”

Below I will abstract some of the comments that he makes in this article.  Some of the comments are his  words as contained in the article.  Some are my re-wording of them  for brevity and clarity.  To see the expanded version of what he said, I encourage you to read the article  Spectrum.

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Introduction:

·        Since 1965, some13,000.000 people have left the SDA Church.

·        63 % of these were young people.

·        The reasons they left are believed to be a perception of hypocrisy, lack of friend, congregational conflict and doubts.

·        A 2013 Barna study commissioned by the General Conference suggested that SDA young adults left due seeing the denomination as: doubtless, exclusive, anti-science, overprotective, shallow and repressive.

·        Research conducted by Fuller, on the US in general has stated that  no Christian tradition is really growing in the U.S. today.  But, the SDA denomination ahs more dissatisfaction than the national norm in all categories.

·        A 2016 Pew Study revealed that between 2006 and 2016 the dissatisfaction with religion grew from 16 % to 23 %.

·         A 2016 article in the Review suggested that 2/3 of the NAD Adventists are over 50 years of age, at a time when the average age of a U.S. citizen is 36..

·        The same article revealed that in 1,000 NAD congregation no ( Zero ) children or teens were members.

·        It also suggested that in the NAD 80 % of our congregations are in either a plateau or are declining.

 

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Positive things to do:

 

·        The Spectrum article reports on six (6) measures that a congregation can take to promote growth among the young adults:

1)    Share power with the youth.

2)    Empathize with them rather than judge and criticize.

3)    Promote a “Jesus-centered” way of life.

4)    Replace “cool worship programs” with a warm and welcoming community.

5)    Give priority to involving the youth and their families in all aspects of the congregational life.

6)    Work with the local community rather than isolating from the community.

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The last part of this article is devoted to show innovative methods by which the SDA Church in North America is attempting to rectify the situation.  The close of the article comes to a conclusion.

I will leave these to your further study.