A common piece of conventional wisdom is that people basically make the decision to stay in the Church once as a teenager/young adult and then you’re locked in as a non-active member or active member for the rest of your life. That’s one reason why, with some reason, a lot of resources are vectored towards the youth. 

However, while religious turbulence is particularly acute during this time period, there is plenty of turbulence after. A graphic I generated for a Wheatley Institute report based on Add Health survey data that followed a cohort of young people across time made this point, showing that a lot of people switched from religiously affiliated to unaffiliated as they reached young adulthood. However, there’s still quite a bit of switching afterwards in the 20s and 30s, both into religion and away from religion. 

This matches up with my lived experience. Yes, a lot of people leave once they move out and never look back. However, you live long enough you’ll also see people who were stalwart members and leadership material into old age…and then they leave.

I actually feel quite morose for those people. In the classic book (and movie) The Remains of the Day an old-school butler who dedicated his life (with no love or children) to serving what he saw as a great man later finds out that his master–and therefore his life efforts–weren’t so great, but now he’s old so what is he going to do with what remains of his life? (Hence the title).  I got the same sense from a member of a New Religious Movement I interviewed during my Baylor postdoc who dedicated his life to proselytizing his newfound faith, only for the faith to break apart when he was older. (He was a good sport about it though: “I have no money saved up, but I also have no debt.”) 

Of course, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints doesn’t require us to be monks; we can still live enjoyable lives and have them be consecrated, and I would hope that the fruits of the gospel can be felt and viscerally experienced throughout our life, and our recompense is not just in the promise of a future reward. Still,  I can’t imagine what it would be like to decide in your 70s none of it’s true (although I get the sense that it’s typically a gradual process).

On the other hand, it seems like a lot of the fornicating (or at least “heavy petting”) blue collar football players in my Utah area high school now sport Facebook photos of them in front of a temple with four smiley kids, while the Seminary Council/Honor Council types are in their bajillionth year of graduate school and are very much not Mormon. First shall be last and all that. 

So yes, while we should rightly put a lot of resources towards the youth, it’s not impossible to overemphasize the youth. The married couple with three kids and the empty nester grandparents also benefit from good ministers and religious attention. It isn’t over until it’s over, and there’s a lot of life to live after our 20s.