Rainer: age 16 is when they drop out

The generational battle reaches a flash point when teens reach the age of sixteen. This critical juncture of a young person's life is where the church begins to lose the majority of people in the battle over generations. As the chart below details, what became clearly evident through our research is that most of the dropouts leave the church between the ages of seventeen and nineteen.9

Percentage gain/loss for age categories in the church

These losses are considerable. In just three short years of a teen's life, he or she makes the decision to leave the church. By age twenty-one, most dropouts are basically already gone. In order to stop the mass exodus, churches must renew their focus on those in the mid to late teens. While the church must remain focused on the discipleship of people of all ages, someone celebrating their sweet sixteen in your church should make you evaluate where that teen stands spiritually. Indeed, essential churches begin the discipleship process even earlier in a child's life.

We began this chapter by introducing the essential church. We then detailed the unhealthiness of our churches on a national scale and revealed how churches are losing the generational battle. Next we will reveal several aspects of nonessential churches. What does a nonessential church look like? Certain commonalities exist among those churches that are not reaching the next generation. In the next section we will describe seven sins of dying churches that are the driving factors behind losing the generational battle.

Rainer, T., Geiger, E., & Rainer, S. S., III. (2010). Essential church. Nashville: B&H.

Sam Rainer will be speaking as part of the All Star Sunday School Training team in Jackson, MS on August 23, 24. David Francis and Josh Hunt will also be speaking.

To schedule an All Star Sunday School Training event, see http://allstarsundayschool.com/ or contact Josh Hunt at josh@joshhunt.com 575.650.4564