story matters. And every type of story matters. Perhaps you see someone you know, or even yourself, in these three broad patterns. Second, the majority of young dropouts are not walking away from faith, they are putting involvement in church on hold. In fact, as heartrending as loss-of-faith stories are, prodigals are the rarest of the dropouts; most are either nomads or exiles—those who are dropping out of conventional forms of Christian community, not rejecting Christianity entirely. In other words,