7th Annual Fr. Prislopsky Lecture - 12/08/16
We held our 7th Annual Fr. Vladimir Prislopsky Lecture on December 8, which was postponed from September due to the Lower Level Renovation Project. Mr. Seraphim Danckaert, Director of Mission Advancement at St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary, was our guest lecturer and spoke on "Why our young people are leaving the Church."
Seraphim utilized a series of surveys of teens and young adults across the United States and made up of a huge cross-section of denominations and socio-economic backgrounds. The basic findings were that youth are not as interested in religion because adults are not that interested - and that those youth who do stay in the church are those who have:
A). a faith-based home in which religion is practiced and reinforced, and
B). a good interaction with the multigenerational population of the parish (meaning that the old and young work and interact together on projects and that the older generation actively mentors the younger).