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Growing Youth Spirituality Conference

The Christian Research Association has combined with Tabor College to host a conference on youth spirituality.

Missing Christians

According to the Censuses, the number of Australians identifying with a Christian denomination increased from 12.76 million to 13.15 million between 2001 and 2011. Over that period, 766,758 migrants had arrived in Australia who identified with a Christian denomination in that same decade. With these migrants, there should be at least 13.5 million Christians in Australia instead of 13.15 million.
Indeed, we can go further that that. The Census also tells us that 1,390,104 children were born over the decade from 2001 and 2011 who were identified with a Christian denomination in the 2011 Census. Adding the children born and the migrants to the 2001 Christian population gives us almost 15 million people – 1.8 million more than the 13.15 million the Census counted in 2011.
We estimate that, of the 1.8 million people ‘missing’, it is likely that close to 1 million have died. We also estimate that at least 200,000 were overseas at the time of the Census – either having emigrated out of Australia, or on holiday. However, there remain between 500,000 and 600,000 people missing. Further analysis shows that most of these people were aged between 10 and 34.
We estimate that 525,000 people who identified with a Christian denomination in 2001 ticked the ‘no religion’ box on the Census in 2011. The growth in the number of Christians in Australia is occurring largely because of migration. It is masking the significant outflow of Australians to ‘no religion’.
For the details of this analysis, see Pointers Vol.23, no.1 (March 2013).

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Youth Ministry

A recent book from the USA, Almost Christian: What the Faith of our Teenagers is Telling the American Church, is built on the observation most American young people who are engaged in religion are ‘luke-warm’ about it. They see God as wanting people to be good, nice and fair to each other, but God is not involved in their lives, except to help them serve problems. The author, Kenda Dean, argues that young people are reflecting the attitudes in their families and in their churches. She suggests that young people are not articulate and passionate about the Christian faith because they have not heard a high level of articulation or experienced a high level of passion in their homes or in their churches.

Church Attendance Among Australian Teenagers

Getting accurate information about the church attendance patterns of Australian teenagers is very difficult. We do know that, if both parents attend church, 52 per cent of their teenage children attended. If just the mother attends, 20 per cent of the teenage children attended, and 6 per cent attend if just the father attends. However, about 22 per cent of young people who go to church schools attend even though neither parent attends.