Some churches struggling with shrinking attendance are shortening their traditional Sunday services, promising to get a generation with limited attention spans out the door in as little as 30 minutes.
These abbreviated ceremonies are an innovation that leaders hope will lure back the enormous numbers of young people who avoid Sundays at church. With distractions such as the Internet and a weak connection to the faith of their childhoods, many are steering clear, to the dismay of religious leaders who desperately want them back.
"We are increasingly aware of the time pressures on families, and they have been telling us that the traditional service is too long for them," said Rev. Chip Stokes of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Delray Beach, Florida. "We recognize that things are changing and we have to be more adaptive without losing our core."
St. Paul's recently introduced Family Eucharist, a 30-minute service designed for children up to Grade 4 and their parents, as an alternative to the church's 90-minute traditional service.
Stokes said he is thrilled with attendance: About 40 parents and kids have attended each week since the service started last month, and participants even include some people who don't have children but seek a shorter worship session.
This trend reaches across denominations: Trinity Lutheran Church in Pembroke Pines, Florida, has a service of about 50 minutes targeted at young people on Sunday mornings.
Roman Catholics have long accommodated hurried worshipers at daily Mass. Recognizing they are often on the way to work or taking a lunch break, priests keep some Masses to less than 45 minutes.
"When you don't give a daily homily, it cuts 10 minutes," said the Rev. Gabriel O'Reilly of St.
David's Catholic Church in Davie, Florida.
But not everyone supports the trend toward briefer worship sessions.
"The Lord gives us 24 hours a day, seven days a week," said Karen Turnbull, a lay leader at St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church in Delray Beach. "And he's asking us for only one hour to come to church."
Turnbull said she attends Sunday Mass with her son and daughter-in-law, plus two young granddaughters.
"It's hard for them to sit still. But you have to start teaching a little discipline at a young age," she said.
The 2012 Millennial Values Survey found a quarter of 18-to24-year-olds identify themselves as religiously unaffiliated, even though only 11 per cent were raised without a faith.
Catholics and mainline Protestants, including Episcopalians, are seeing the largest number of young people leaving the faiths they grew up with.
