Why the call to reimagine faith formation?

In 2014, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published its research entitled America’s Changing Religious Landscape, reporting that “Of all the major denominations, Catholicism has experienced the greatest net losses as a result of affiliation changes.” The study further revealed that thirty-five percent of the Millennial generation claimed no religious affiliation. Called the “Nones” (because when asked about their religious identity, they answer “none”), this group was (and is) growing faster than any other religious category.

The news was especially alarming for those dedicated to the faith formation of our youth. Young people are “going, going, gone,” says author Robert McCarty. McCarty summarized the results of research done by St. Mary’s Press in collaboration with the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) in the book Going, Going, Gone. CARA studied the dynamics of “disaffiliated young Catholics” and the mass exodus of young people after receiving the sacrament of Confirmation. The drop-off religious education model of past generations (where parents dropped off their kids and picked them up an hour later) is not accom- plishing the goal of forming young people in the faith. If we are called to “go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19–20), at some point we have to ask ourselves why we keep doing what we’re doing when we know it isn’t accomplishing that goal. The pandemic accelerated this crisis. And yet, this is also why I see our current situation as an opportunity.

The percentage of the unaffiliated is higher among the young. One study reported more distressing news: that sixty-eight percent of those families who identify as Catholic do not have their children in either Catholic schools, religious education, faith formation programs, or youth ministry (CARA, 2015). If we are to reach young people and their families, we must rethink our methods of formation and evangelization.
The most recent research outlines even more dire statistics:

• 26.1 million Americans who were baptized Catholic are no longer practicing (Outreach to the Unaffiliated, USCCB)
• 26% of the U.S. adult population identify as unaffiliated (Outreach to the Unaffiliated, USCCB)
• 79% of those disaffiliated from religion before the age of 24 (Outreach to the Unaffiliated, USCCB)
• Americans’ membership in houses of worship continued to decline last year, dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup’s eight-decade trend
• In 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue, or mosque, down from 50% in 2018 and 70% in 1999 (Gallup)
  
  

Dr. Christian Smith's research in the National Study on Youth and Religion has influenced much in ministry in recent years. ​One thing that surfaced, and that would play out again and again, was the significance of parents’ influence on the spiritual lives of their teens. Smith and Lundquist Denton said that parents matter most: “Most American teens turn out religiously to look a lot like their parents...it appears that the relative religious laxity of most U.S. Catholic teenagers significantly reflects the relative religious laxity of their parents.” As an educator, minister, and parent, this fascinated me. I knew that however we might reimagine faith formation (and youth ministry), it would have to engage and support the parents as well as their children.
All of this research gave purpose for us to imagine new models of faith formation almost twenty years ago.