Apparently, marriage is not such a hot idea anymore
Fewer people are getting married, and those who do tie the knot may resist having children. Americans are beginning to show a definite dislike for commitment. We like relationships, but only if they aren't complicated. And we like kids, but only if they stay out of our way and take care of themselves.
That could be the conclusion drawn from the news last week that only 23.5 percent of U.S. households are nuclear families: a mom, a dad and children. That number has been steadily declining since the 1960s, when all the traditional ways of dealing with family matters were being tested and society began experimenting with new lifestyles.
Of course, there are several ways to explain the figures. For one, people are marrying at a later age. The median age of men getting married for the first time is 27, compared with 22 in 1960. The median age for women is 25, up from 20 in 1960. And it's easier economically for young people to leave home and live on their own or with friends than it was a decade ago. While those young people set up their homes, the lifestyle doesn't necessarily focus on relationships as much as accumulating material objects.
Older people also are more likely to live alone, and many are economically capable of maintaining an affluent lifestyle without another person's help. So, only 23.5 percent of households included mom, dad and children in 2000. That figure slipped from 25.6 percent in 1990 and from 45 percent in 1960.
You can see the trend is persistent. Asking around the church, clergy have all kinds of reasons why marriage is not receiving the best press these days. The Rev. Tony Jones, a youth minister in Edina, Minn., and author of "Postmodern Youth Ministry," (Zondervan Publishing House, $19.99) says young people are learning about the difficulty of being married from their parents.
"Marriage is a brutally difficult endeavor," Jones said. "But a lot of baby boomers went into marriage thinking it wouldn't be that difficult. But it's probably the toughest thing they've ever done in their life. Now their children are reacting, and this is a generation that has its own mind. The postmodern people do what they want, say what they want and when they want."
That's the kind of behavior that often doesn't work well in a marriage. And rather than change that behavior, many postmodern youth are just as likely to skip the marriage challenge completely.
But what does that tell us about the church of the future? Will those "postmodern" people also skip the church experience? Or will religious institutions change dramatically to draw young people into the inner sanctum?
For more than a century the major focus of church evangelism has been the nuclear family. Church leaders believed that if they could lure mom, dad and the kids into church, society would benefit. Until recently, their assumptions were correct. But now, with only 23.5 percent of households with a dad, a mom and children, the church has essentially lost its evangelism focus.
It may take another two decades for the church to recognize that the new focus of evangelism is divorced women with children, or single people with no children, or elderly people who are living together without being married. The Christian church, particularly the mainline congregations, will have to flex and stretch primary targets to include all those people who have found a new way to live.
Jones, who is one of three youth ministers at Colonial Church of Edina, Minn., says that among the neediest people attending his affluent congregation are single mothers who need male support in their children's lives. Jones says he wants as many as eight other significant adults in every child's life: camp counselors, mentors, teachers, small group leaders and pastors. It requires an entire intergenerational staff of volunteers and professionals to make it happen. But when it all works together, Jones says, evangelism also gets done.
"Then, suddenly, that mother is coming to church because she knows we are providing her family with an entire extended family at church. She knows we care about her children," he said.
That's the kind of effort that will keep the church alive in the future. The first step is to find your congregation's new focus for the evangelism of its future.
Clark D. Morphew
6-2-01
