Learn About/Subscribe:
Christian Union

Christian Union: The Magazine



Flip through the online magazine above or scroll down to read a selection of the feature articles in the magazine.

With its report, The Great Opportunity: The American Church in 2050, the Pinetops Foundation examines the fruitfulness, or lack thereof, when it comes to the engagement of today’s teens and young adults.

Report Details ‘Pivotal Moment’ for Gen Z and Millennials


by tom campisi, managing editor



With its report, The Great Opportunity: The American Church in 2050, the Pinetops Foundation examines the fruitfulness, or lack thereof, when it comes to the engagement of today’s teens and young adults.

According to its 2018 report, approximately one million young people are leaving the church each year—but a “great opportunity” exists if we can reverse the current trends assigned to Generation Z and younger Millennials.

Dr. Sam Kim is a scholar at the Yale-Hasting Center, where he explores the crisis of professional burnout in academic medicine and health care. He is a recipient of the Lifelong Learning Fellowship at Yale Divinity School and Yale Medical School and worked as a research fellow in global health and social medicine at the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School.

The Loneliness Epidemic among Young Adults

Dr. Sam Kim is a scholar at the Yale-Hasting Center, where he explores the crisis of professional burnout in academic medicine and health care. He is a recipient of the Lifelong Learning Fellowship at Yale Divinity School and Yale Medical School and worked as a research fellow in global health and social medicine at the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School.

The co-founder of 180 Church in New York City, which started with students from Columbia University, Kim earned a doctorate in ethical leadership at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is a regular contributor to Christianity Today Exchange and the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College.

 

You have previously written about a loneliness epidemic in society. Please elaborate on this in regards to today’s young adults.

A significant pattern related to the Cigna study of loneliness and social isolation is that Generation Z (ages 18-22) is now the loneliest generation in history. Although Gen Z is perhaps the generation that is most technologically connected, they scored the highest on the UCLA loneliness scale, an instrument that measures and assesses subjective feelings of loneliness by using a twenty-item questionnaire.