Ian is a Christian who says he is highly spiritual but not at all religious.

Unfortunately for churches, there are a lot of Ians out there.

A new benchmark survey finds that 55 percent of young people ages 12 to 25 say they are more spiritual now than two years ago. But nearly one-third of the young people said they don't trust organized religion.

''If that's the way they really feel, it means that we have some serious questions that we need to ask ourselves,'' said Terry Dittmer, the director of youth ministry for the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

The survey, believed to be the first of its kind in the world, was conducted by the Search Institute and released last week at the Healthy Communities-Healthy Youth Conference. Peter Benson and Gene Roehlkepartain, co-directors of the institute's Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence, said that it will take several months, if not years, of serious number-crunching to figure out all of the study's implications.

''This work is still in the emergent stage,'' Roehlkepartain said. He said the institute hopes to use the data as a baseline for follow-up surveys that will be conducted every two years. ``This is our first coming-out party.''

The survey included 6,853 subjects. The first question was, ''What does it mean to be spiritual?'' There were nine choices, running from ''believing in God'' to ''being true to one's inner self.'' They also could say that there is no spiritual dimension, and there was an ''I don't know'' option.

The good news for faith communities is that 93 percent of the young people surveyed believe there is a spiritual aspect to life.

CLEAR DISCONNECT

But the disconnect between spirituality and religion was clear in the comments from Ian and other young people interviewed for the survey.

Gaurav said he is ''practically religious'' in that he follows his Hindu faith's traditions but he's not ''spiritually religious.'' Amneh has rejected many of her religion's traditions as sexist but said she still adheres to the teachings of Islam.

Benson said he wasn't surprised that many young people drew a line between spirituality and religion.

''Spirituality is bigger than religion,'' he said. ``One of the things we have to focus on now is disentangling spiritual development from religious development.''

When told of the survey, Miriam Cameron, a professor at the University of Minnesota's Center for Spirituality & Healing, said the results confirm what she has observed in her classes.

''Many of my students equate religion with dogma and spirituality with harmony,'' she said. But speaking as the daughter of a minister, she said that she doesn't think that religions need to feel threatened by the growth of spirituality. ''Not at all,'' she said. ``Spirituality works well with most religions. The only ones it doesn't work with are the angry people who say that everyone else's image of God is wrong. . . . The spiritual view of God is much more inclusive.''

If the youth don't feel spiritual in church, where do they?

NEW ALTERNATIVES

''Spending time in nature'' topped the list of responses. ''Listening to or playing music'' was No. 2, and ''helping other people or the community'' was third. ''Attending religious services'' was ninth on the list of the top 12 most-frequent answers.

Many young people are turning to meditation. At a meeting of the Mindfulness Meditation Club at the University of Minnesota, none of the students was surprised by the news that spirituality is growing or by the finding that there's a line being drawn between that and religion.

That theory that everything and everyone is part of a larger whole is what sets spirituality off from most religions, senior David Horn said. ''It doesn't make distinctions, and religion is all about making distinctions,'' he said.

So, how do faith communities respond to this trend? The Center for Spiritual Development stopped short of offering specific advice for how churches can reach more young people, but it did conclude its report with the suggestion that the place to start is with conversations. The report recommends asking young people open-ended questions, such as ''What does being spiritual mean to you?'' and ``What is most important in your life?''

''We're not paying enough attention to what our kids are saying,'' Roehlkepartain said. ``We need to listen more and talk less.''

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