Gone are the days where the general populous knew the most basic Scriptures like Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark or even the Christmas story. Today most children, teens and young adults struggle to identify Biblical narratives against popular fiction like Harry Potter or The Hunger Games.

In almost every church I visit, people ask me this question:

“Mike, why aren’t young people committed to the church anymore? They seem to have forgotten about loyalty!”

Why don’t Millennials stick around at the churches they grew up in? Why aren’t they coming back to their ‘home church?'“

A question I get a lot is “how do we get more young people into our church?”. This question inevitably leads to a brief conversation about advertising through social media, emails, or even the newspaper.

I’m a fan of media, but I still believe that a personal invite is always the best way to go.

Interestingly, only 2% of people in their church say that they’ve invited someone in the last year.

Where I live (in the Kitchener Waterloo area), Nones made-up 24% of the region in 2011 (and I would expect that number to be much higher today). Nationally the number of Nones has grown exponentially over the past 40 years from 4% of our population to about 24% as of 2011. As church leaders we can't ignore this - so the topic of Nones has quickly risen among church leaders in all denominations. Questions like ‘What do we need to know’ and ‘what do we do next’ are being asked.

The topic of church hospitality is coming up more often as I speak with church leaders, sessions, and elder boards. As congregations continue to shrink, and more churches close each year, leaders are looking for ways to combat this trend. How can we bring new people in? How can we ensure they want to come back? How do we make sure our back door isn’t as wide open as our front door?