(ChurchLeaders) There is encouraging and sobering news for pastors of millennials in a new, 62-page report from Barna examining millennial views on different areas of life. When exploring how much millennials trust various cultural influencers, Barna found that millennials do trust pastors—but that trust is “guarded.”
“The good news for pastors,” wrote Barna, “is that millennials, on balance, are somewhat more likely to trust them than to not trust them: 54 percent said they would trust pastors of Christian churches to do what is right or to tell the truth at least sometimes. In comparison 37 percent said they would not afford pastors even that minimal level of trust.”
However, Barna continued, “The more challenging news for pastors…is that the most important response (the ‘top box’ response on the scale, indicating that the respondent would ‘always or almost always trust pastors of Christian churches to tell the truth or to do what is right’) reached only 26 percent. Phrased differently, three out of four millennials do not have consistent trust in the words and decisions of Christian pastors.”