An Article from Rethinking Youth Ministry
U.S context but real resonance with the UK, great piece of work and well worth a look
In particular, the study looked at those youth who had been active in church but are no longer. The respondents shared many reasons but six major themes emerged for what seems to be keeping youth away from organized Christian faith:
1) Churches seems overprotective (e.g. resist, demonize, and ignore real-world issues and problems).
2) Youth experience Christianity in the Church as shallow (e.g. not relevant or connected to an experience of God.)
3) Churches appear antagonistic to science.
4) Churches take an overly-simplistic or judgmental view of sexuality.
5) Youth struggle with exclusive claims of some Christian churches.
6) Youth sees the Church as unfriendly to those who doubt.
All credit to Dopcandy for link posting this WAY before me
Interesting list. #3 really sticks out. It's unfortunate because, if you really do your research, science totally backs the existence of a single God. That could be a great witness to young people.