"Our millennial children, as well as nonchurchgoing millennials, are both the church's greatest challenge and its most exciting new opportunity."
--John Seel, PhD

Warning: There is a fundamental frame of reference shift in American society happening right now among young adults. You may think of this group as millennials--those born between 1980 and 2000--but millennials resist this label for good reason: the national narrative on them is pejorative, patronizing, and just plain wrong.

Here's what we do know:

• Of Americans with a...