Thank you, thank you, thank you, Kara. It's becoming increasingly apparent that the snazzier and more self-contained the youth group, the harder it is for graduates to make the transition after they graduate.

We've cut ourselves off from the relationships that are going to last.

Thanks for naming the beast, Kara.

One of the damages from measuring staff on a high-performance/business model driven is we obligate them to cutting corners and moving into a production mode. We glorify the flashy, high-end ministries and minimize those who aren't.

I don't know how reliable Barna and Rainers' numbers are. We are seeing some amazing things happen through college campus ministries. One of the bigger issues is what happens when these students leave college. Often they drop out from frequent attendance due to jobs, career goals, relationships, etc.

It is hard to use last century models for tracking attendance in a new century where dynamics change.

That said I still believe in age segmented ministry. I believe it is the best for my context and we are seeing great things through it. There are conversations that students need to have that adults don't and vice versa. The answer isn't in moving away from an age segmented ministry model but providing excellent and thorough instruction at all levels that begins and ends with the Cross.

We have lower the bar on our expectations of our people and raised the bar on the aesthetic for our staffs. You will never see a generation returning if there is no theological mooring to lash onto in the midst of the storm of their life.

You are the Church!
Robert Angison

I have commented before on this topic, as I am someone all for intergenerational "church". But how we measure that cannot be based on if they all attend the same worship gathering. I went through a season of "let's try and have all the youth in the main worship gathering so we are intergenerational" but then realized maybe I am focusing in wrong thinking of what I am trying to see "intergenerational" as being. I now don't measure intergenerational church by the Sunday gathering, but instead by how youth are being mentored by older generations or participating in other aspects of the church life. Not by trying to get them into an all age gathering.

In time, as they mature, they do go to the older gathering as they have relationships. I just baptized a 16 year old who is part of the all-age gathering because of relationships. But it wasn't forced or set out to be a goal. We have distinct youth meetings now just for youth - and I see it as very healthy having them meet separately. They need those distinct "youth" meetings for developing peer relationships, the teaching can be specified to their age group, they can be set up with mentors. Also - I can say that we see non-Christian teenagers not coming to to the main worship gathering as their entry point into the church. It is in the youth meetings and the youth activities. I can't imagine the lack of evangelism that would occur if we didn't have a distinct youth ministry with youth aged meetings.

I understand this fits into the life of each church and every church is different in their strategy, size etc. which does make a difference. I was in a megachurch for 14 years in a large youth ministry and now in a 5 year old church plant. So my context is from these two experiences.

I am a strong supporter of intergenerational and non-divisional relationships. As a part of God's family we are called to love and share with all, not just those like us (no divisions by age, gender, race, economics, etc.). I have worked with youth and young adults for 20 years and love connecting them with others outside of their comfort group because I begin to see lights go on regarding what it means to be a part of a family and share. They start to understand the interconnectedness rather than falling into American individualism.

Kara said "one thing churches can do that really makes a difference is getting kids actively involved in the life of the church before they graduate". While I agree with this I would suggest that this is the outcome of a deeper root issue. What really makes a difference is getting kids/youth (and even adults) to be actively involved in living out their faith by being actively involved in the life of the church and in relationships with others in the church. I believe that gap that is just starting to be recognized is that the church over time has taught concepts, but has not connected the dots for many people. We are walking around with a lot of knowledge and wisdom but lack the understanding of what it is to live as a Christian and how that impacts every part of our daily lives. Few church leaders are even able to help advise and disciple others along these lines. If we start helping connect those gaps so that people really come to an understanding of what happens in our lives after we believe the initial message of the gospel, then we will start to see lives that are radically altered by God. When youth realize the transformation of their heart and mind and that everything pours out from that because Christ is now in us they start to connect, serve, love, give, and invest in amazing ways.

This is such a fascinating article. I can relate because I'm one of those statistics - a kid who grew up in youth group only to become disallusioned with the church as a young adult. I always assumed that the disconnect had to do with my general frustrations with evangelicalism, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how strongly my transition from the "kid table" to the "grownup table" had affected me.

I wrote a post and included a link on my blog. I have a feeling that this article will resonate with a lot of my twenty-something readers.

Good stuff.

...I mean my readers, many of whom are twenty-somethings. :-) Google analytics says I have more than twenty readers!

I'm fascinated in every aspect of this, that we've come so far and fast in Youth Ministry to discuss the positive and negative of one model over another. I'm not trying to throw a wrench in the discussion, but our Youth Ministries do what, as Andy Stanley says, "we have lead and rewarded them to do." If that's true, then it's not only a discussion of Youth Ministry models, but of Worship environments as well. Our services MUST incorporate the generation gap, so our Jr. and Sr. High students desire the day they can lead in these environments. I've had too many conversations with young leaders trying their best to run with the current worship service plans, only to become discouraged with it's content.

As a former staff guy with younglife in Australia I would like to point out a big difference between the model of young life and that of church youth ministries that have adopted a "younglifey model"

young life has historicaly been about those young people in no way connected to the church! It was never ment to be a "youth group"

Younglife uses the fact that teens gather in there own social network in order to win the right to be heard on the gospel.

Another key difference in contact work. Young life leaders ( of all generations) are asked to step out of their world and enter the world of young people each week. This missional engagement is sooo much more than just a fun youth program.

That's my $0.02

Hi,
Your article is like motivation for the people to change the mindset of the young people who don't like to go to church.There is need of communal movement to remove the Age segmentation.

This is one of the reasons why I stopped reading Group Magazine. :)

I agree with Andrew. I am a former young life urban area director and I was reaching kids who would not step foot in the church. Yet i still worked hard to connect them to a local church so they understood the purpose of it.

I do think that isolating youth in youth-only ministries is not healthy over the long-term. They already have their own youth culture devoid of strong consistent adults who care about their spiritual development.

Our job is not to make them think its all about them. We are to promote this new intentional community that involves people of all ages.

Good article and great conversation. I agree, as I think most would, with the benefits of inter-generational ministry. However, this is only one aspect of the statistics.

In my opinion, it is necessary to include time and "space" for people at this age to develop in their faith in a real and complex way. Young people need several years to explore, think for themselves, ask questions, doubt, push back, and eventually (hopefully) come to some sort of a faith commitment that is truly their own. This is a hugely important process that young adults go through in ALL areas of their life (moving away to college, dating and getting married, new career, etc.), not just religion and faith. This is all a part of creating healthy distance and autonomy.

Why do we expect youth to stay committed Christians through such a transitional phase in their lives? Why don't we offer them the space - intellectually, physically, emotionally - to grow and search and mature and find God on their own in their own way.

In my opinion, most youth programs - regardless of the format or ages of those involved - tell students WHAT to believe, what to DO and what NOT to do, and encourage or even demand a high level of faithful commitment. Young adults are experiencing the realities of faith challenges and real life situations that make belief very difficult (especially belief in the Christian God). Every day doubts do not have any place in a youth or adult church service, and that's why you won't find many honest 18-30's there.

We have to affirm young people's search. Walk alongside them in their faith journey. Stop focusing on whether or not they are attending church, and realize that they are trying to find God.

Excellent article. I hope many will listen and implement these practices. I've been seeing the age separation thing for a long time now and have had many of the same thoughts as the article expresses, so it's nice to see it backed up with some research. At one level, it's sort of a no-brainer: treat kids like people instead of like a project to be managed and they'll feel and be more connected.

Intergenerational is not an idea that comes and goes with time. It is Gods design for growth to flow through barrier crossing relationships. But what good is intergenerational in crowd and one-way communication oriented gatherings. What good is it for a teen to sit next to a 40 something and both of them face a pulpit for the whole time? Being in the same room does not constitute relationship.

The institutionalized system of faith is loaded with bogus assumptions that corrupt the ability of God's people to grow to the full stature of Christ. It dumbs down all God's people. It leads them to think you can't learn and grow unless you are divided up into homogeneous interests. Until the system is corrected, the dynamic will stay homogeneous. Knowing there is a problem and passionate talk won't change anything.

"We have lower the bar on our expectations of our people and raised the bar on the aesthetic for our staffs." - Very well said, sir!

As a youth group teen in the mid-90's, I stopped attending my home church for assorted bad reasons and started attending the large, flashy church my new boyfriend went to. There was a big youth group *and* youth Sunday School, that church had its own gym (super-cool at the time), and the worship band was definitely hip. There was some good teaching there, but it was a very segregated place, I don't think any of us realized just how badly that church had failed its high school congregation until the year my friends and I graduated. The church was in the process of hiring a new youth pastor, and at the beginning of our first semester in college the interim youth pastor gathered us all together and bluntly informed us that the new youth pastor wasn't for us, he was for the high school kids, and we were on our own now and had to start doing our own thing, because we were college students now and should grow up and look after ourselves. You can imagine our state of shock over being abruptly cut off from the body, especially in the most confusing, life-changing period of our lives up to that point, after years of being babied and having our growth stunted or prevented (of course, we didn't realize this was the case until this moment).

I believe that those of us who came out swinging on the other side - that is, those who remained in the Church and the faith - only did so thanks to Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, which shepherded Christian fellowships in all the local colleges in a hostile place where the population percentage of born-again Christians is the lowest in the developed world. In this setting, simply hanging out in an unmarked room at the busiest intersection of the school, that everyone knew as "the Christian club" and could come visit for a rant or debate at any time, was our first true test of faith. Shepherded by our IVCF worker, we sharpened each other and grew for the first time in ways that I now see were never possible in the context of my particular youth group.

IVCF picked up the pieces of what that church broke and left on the roadside. It brings me a visceral joy to see things in my current church, little things like a recently-baptized 12 year old girl being permitted read the gospel from the pulpit during a regular service (this happens every week, with rotating readers). I don't want to ever see what happened to my friends and I happen in any church I am a part of. It's a miracle of God's mercy that I still love the Church at all after that experience.

No surprises here! I'm thrilled someone else is 'seeing the light'.

As Kevin Smith has written about this issue and how it is addressed in most Christian circles, "The concept of 'intergenerational issues' is spoken of as a deviation from 'normal', a concept and words of a wrong world view. From [God's] point of view we must see 'generational streaming' as the deviation from 'normal'!"

Cheers!

No surprises here! I'm thrilled someone else is 'seeing the light'.

As Kevin Smith has written about this issue and how it is addressed in most Christian circles, "The concept of 'intergenerational issues' is spoken of as a deviation from 'normal', a concept and words of a wrong world view. From [God's] point of view we must see 'generational streaming' as the deviation from 'normal'!"

Cheers!

Very insightful thoughts. I appreciate your insights. Thank you.