Concerned about the church

Sunday's service at the local church was okay. The people there were generally quite nice, the focus seemed to be in the right place, and it was all handled quite well.

But...

Once again, I found myself in a church consisting of a very small number of children, then a big gap, and then a whole load of older people. As far as I could tell, with the exception of the minister, there was no-one within ten years of my age, on either side.

This isn't some new revelation, and shouldn't come as a shock to anyone. However, it really doesn't bode well for the church in Scotland at all. Indeed, it suggests that within 20 years, the church is likely to lose 80% of its membership, simply as they die off (perhaps not, since people are living longer than they once did. However, add twenty years to the average age in most congregations, and the church is likely to become really quite moribund).

I don't know what the answer to this is. I'm not sure there even is an answer. But it seems rather unfortunate that there seems to be a new generation of younger and very capable ministers just coming into their own, but it looks like they might find themselves preaching to empty pews.

(Actually, I tell a lie; I do know the answer to this. The way to attract more younger people is to attract more younger people. In youth groups, and indeed groups in general, there's such a thing as 'critical mass'. If you get enough people together, the group will naturally expand as they pull in others. If you don't have enough people, the group will gradually shrink, as people naturally drift away to do other things. But going from the current one or two to the requisite twenty or twenty-five... that's the real trick.)