Is it just me, or is there rarely young adults in church?

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I find that it really depends upon the individual parish. Some parishes are more family oriented. Some tend to cater to older parishioners who have been around a long time. Some minister primarily to immigrant communities and their needs. Some have quite a lot of young adults.

College campuses, obviously, have Masses where a lot of young adults attend. Neighborhoods where the population is heavily young adult will see more of them in greater numbers at Mass. If a parish has a school, young couples will likely participate. When there are ministries specifically focused on young adults they can draw a greater crowd. Mass times and the nature of liturgies can make a difference, also.

Then there is the simple reality that often people in their 20s journey away from the Church. At some point, many do tend to drift back in greater numbers. I find that you’re more likely to find a greater concentration of 30 and 40 somethings in the Church. Given, especially in a parish which doesn’t have an environment especially fostering for young adults, it can be quite lonely to be a devout 20 something at Mass.
 
SANxJONERO said:
Now that I am more religious I get rejected by so many people & some times I just want to be friendly, but some people take my new self as something bad. I’m not a bible thumper, but I am a changed man & I thought I would be liked more for that.
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Not necessarily. It is a challenge to many people who don’t appreciate faith and see it as an affront to their type of lifestyle. And others just aren’t mature enough to recognize the value of someone who has their life together. There’s an old saying, “Nice guys finish last.”
 
Brigadoon said:
Something I’ve noticed in my parish is a lot of grandparents bringing their grandchildren to church, but the children’s parents are nowhere to be seen. This is very common in my parish.
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I’m seeing that in my parish too, the parents don’t even bother to accompany the kids to Mass when they are preparing for First Communion, grandma &/or grandpa do it and the parents show up for the picture taking on the day of.

As for the age the OP was asking about (early 20s), the only ones I see regularly are my friend’s daughters and from what I’ve seen when their parents are out of town, I doubt they’d be going if mom & dad weren’t riding herd on them.

I can’t comment though, my kids all stopped going to church when they left home to go to school.
 
Aramis said:
Don’t know about where you’re at, but the census data for Alaska shows that most college age kids leave for college out of state. If you are not in a big college town, you may find the same issue as a localized phenomenon.

Mind you, I live in the “big college town” for Alaska… but most of those bound for college do leave state. Many also instead go into the military before college, thus putting them on the installations rather than (usually) in the community. By their early 30’s, most can afford off base housing, and return to the “real world” even if they have gone career military. Now, last time I went to mass on one of the bases, it was packed with 20-somethings. (It was, however 15 years ago! At the time, I was one of 3 obvious 20-somethings in the parish of about 40 families I was and am again part of.)

And last time I was at St. Mary’s in Corvallis, Oregon (About 2003, IIRC) it, too, was having plenty 20-somethings attend.
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Not sure if I live in a “big college town”, but we do have San Jose State University & other colleges people can go to.

Glad to see some churches are doing well with the youth.
 
My parish is our diocese cathedral in a city which has lots of universities and colleges. There are also many young professionals who live in the city. So, for the later masses, like for late Sunday mornings (11:00 and 12:30) and our 5:00 p.m. masses on Saturday and Sundays, I’ve seen more younger people like college age and young adults in their 20s/30s.

My brother recently started going back to church after almost a 10 year absence. He will only go to my parish as he can’t stand most of the parishes in the suburbs. To him they are too “watered-down”, “dumbed-down” and the liturgical music at many of them are a joke to him. He had very bad experiences with church and Catholic school (refuses to ever go to mass at our childhood parish) and suburbia in general - things I never knew about before, so anything that represents suburbia and a dumbing down of anything really turns him off. I had been praying for him to come back to mass for years and am just so happy he has returned.

Our sister who is in her mid 20s now, has now expressed to me her desire to return to mass again after many years of not going. Although, again, she is turned off with the way mass was for us in the 80s and 90s. She is also yearning for more reverence at mass, so only wants to attend mass where my husband and I go. She’s a jokester and is actually a very funny and fun girl to be around, so anything that remotely resembles something like a rock mass will make her laugh and joke about it and have very little respect for it. (When we were kids, she’d always focus on the silliness of some of the liturgies we’ve had to attend and it would take me tons of prayers to not listen to her little asides during mass and start laughing) She needs seriousness in her life and especially in mass.

So, it might all depend on what was missing in these young people’s lives during mass in particular areas.
 
As a young Catholic adult myself, I often notice the same problem. It is especially difficult when looking to form a faith-based Catholic relationship. As a traditional Catholic, I am not personally one for the guitars and up-beat Life-Teen Mass. I know there are some youth Catholics out there attracted to Tradition.
 
I really believe in having programs for youth in the parish, these are difficult to organize. However, I do not believe in having all these seperate Liturgies for special interests. I feel it seperates the congregations and puts them into categories. Life-teen mass for the young, English Mass, Spanish Mass. The parish should all be united, despite their age or background, or language they speak.
 
Perhaps a lot of folks in that age range are at college. We have two parishes here in this community. One is on the college campus and sometimes I will go and the pews are full of students. In fact I feel out of place when I go there…I’m an old foggie; and feel like I’m taking up space that would be for a student. They have extra fold out chairs in the aisles along the walls, the church is so full and they are all young adults and some faculty as well.
 
Aramis said:
Don’t know about where you’re at, but the census data for Alaska shows that most college age kids leave for college out of state. If you are not in a big college town, you may find the same issue as a localized phenomenon.
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Leaving town to go to school is also the reality in our community but if that were the only reason we’d expect the numbers to rise in the summer months when a good percentage of the students return home for the summer. Unfortunately such is not the case. The only time we see most of these people is at the Christmas Midnight Mass.

We only have two Sunday Masses (one anticipated where the average age is ~60 and one at 10 a.m. Sunday) and I attend both a couple of times a month so it’s not that I’m missing the Mass that the youth attend.
 
CARA seems to be the major source of statistics on the Church. The only poll I have seen was in 2004, so the results may be somewhat different; although most likely not greatly different:

Pre Vatican 2: 52%

Vatican 2: 38%

Post Vatican 2, age 31-43: 22%

Post Vatican 2, age 18-30: 21%

And there you have it in black and white. The OP’s impression is correct. The above are statistics for every week attendance. A note in the report indicates that the levels of attendance by generations are unchanged from the September 200 poll.
 
I’m 22 in december, and serve on the altar at my parish in the saturday vigil. To say I relate to the OP is a huge understatement! My parish is almost a majority of elderly people. Truly disheartening!
 
Actually, today I noticed quite a few younger folks at the mass. Many I had never seen before, but to be fair I don’t usually look around to see who’s there. I pray that more people of my generation will find faith. Even if it were to be protestant, or Jewish, or any kind of faith it would be better than the atheism and secularism that are so rampant that many consider them “natural facts,” and are shocked when I offer sensible reasons for belief in God.
 
If I knew of a valid Tridentine Mass in my area I would go to it, but I know not of one.
 
There aren’t many young-adults I see regularly at my parish. There’s only a few that are around my age that attend weekly. And we usually pal around with the teens, a lot of them show up weekly and are quite happy about it to.
 
On the bright side…

I went to the 10:30AM Sunday mass at my suburban, New Jersey parish today and it was packed with about 2,000 people. The breakout of ages struck me as representative of the general neighborhood.

If I had to guess, I’d say something like:

20% Elderly
20% Young Adults
20% Children and Infants
40% People from 40-65

This is one of five masses offered on Sunday and of the three time slots that I have attended, the attendance at each runs from roughly 1200 to 2000, with about the same demographics.

Paul
 
There are a lot of them at the Masses I attend here in New Orleans both Traditional Mass and the Ordinary Form. Of course, both of these masses take place at a very orthodox Church, St Patricks. It has been my experience both here and in San Diego that the more orthodox Masses have a somewhat higher level of participation by young people then do the more modern ones.

Just an observation.
 
Well, this is my first post. This is a subject that is most dear to my heart. I have two middle school children, one will be going into high school next year. I was a fall away Catholic, who returned to the Church a few years ago;) The subject of WHY you rarely see young adults in church is a complicated one - but here is my “wooden nickel” worth of wisdom

I noticed the very same thing at my home parish. Very few young people!!! My children (who are attending Catholic school) consider the Mass boring (when compared to what they consider more exciting worship services in fundamentalist churches) My home parish, this year is placing more emphasis on youth activities for high school age and hopefully this well help

I guess the bottom line is - that with this “entertainment generation” - its the challenge of all Catholics who truly believe in the Faith to nurture their children (which may mean taking the children and youth to Mass on EVERY Sunday even under duress). Hmmm - family tradition & time in worship.:eek: Then pray for the best!!

My last two points - we have commenced searching for a Catholic high school for my oldest daughter. One, very very small private Catholic school near by and another larger diocesian school (25 miles away). Those limited choices make a statement of the priority we are placing on our youth as Catholics compared to other denominations. Little wonder why it is rare to see young adults in Church 😦 I quess the question should be asked “where have we planted our seeds?”

The good news is the my daughter came home after a visit to the 25 mile-away diocesian school more enthusiastically talking about the Mass she attended - mentioning some of the more contemporary music she heard during Mass

My second and LAST point :rolleyes: - Would you believe that even being raised in a Catholic family, going to parochial school, and being Confirmed I missed this!!! - John 6. My previous denominations stressed a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It doesn’t get more intimate or personal than the Eucharist. How did I miss this?? Is there something that we are not doing in teaching children and youth that will help them reconcile in their own heart thechallenges of Faith that they WILL face as young adults?? Perhaps that is also part of the reason why we see so few young adults in Church:confused:

God Bless let’s make an extra effort to pray our youth, and as my athletic coach often said “let’s get the lead out”!!!

Ron
 
“Is it just me, or is there rarely young adults in church?”

As a teacher, I believe that while much of our youth today are religious, deep down, they somehow feel obligated to denounce religion publicly, to placate a nefarious, cynical, atheistic influence now dominating our popular culture.
 
Just a small reply.
I forget the actual standards for young adults in our Catholic Faith. Ther are very few, because we as a whole in the Church have not kept up our duties to form and educate their faith. We are slowly making a come back with the usage of various wonderful programs. JP II said that the Church cannot deny the culture and cannot resist the culture, but work with the culture. Thus, we have programs such as LiFE TEEN. It is a wonderful Mass and place that makes it able for teens to relate to God. It provides a way for them to understand just who God is. As a teen, I am both a supporter of the Traditional Latin Mass and Life Teen. You see, nothing is wrong with Charasmatic Masses as long as they follow the rules and guidelines that were set down to preserve our tradition and also to give meaning to what we do.

As for the thing about others, be careful with judgements. We can be quick to judge at times, but we also fail to know the full person in al of their circumstances and thus mak a differnce in their lives by simply being there.

Anyways God Bless.
 
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