I made it through a large and exciting youth group, graduated college with a youth ministry degree, and worked as a youth pastor. Yet, I agree with what you wrote.

Especially for boys, I think that style of ministry often encourages the "man-child" effect. Unfortunately, youth pastors tend to model this as well as almost every teen and male role model on TV. This is tragic.

I wonder if the data suggested a difference between males and females.

We are good at creating Christian teens but not Christian adults.

I appreciated Drew Dyck’s article Red Bull Gospel but I would add some observations.
I have a 26 year old daughter who loves God and lives her life according to a Biblical life paradigm, seeking to walk out God’s love in her daily life. Her job requires her to work every Sunday (ICU Nurse), so that does complicate her ability to attend worship services. However, I don’t think she would attend even without the scheduling problems.

Why? It isn’t because her upbringing and training “didn’t stick”. It is because she does not see the organized church as a reflection of the body of Christ as modeled and walked out by Christ. It is program focused and doesn’t allow for the realities of wrestling with God over who He is, how He allows the world to function, who she is, and how she can walk out God’s love for those around her. Gossip and bickering and anger are all sins that flourish in the church, seldom with any notice of the devastating effects. Pornography or lying or drunkenness are not regarded in a similar fashion, and since a youth raised in the church knows how such sins are regarded, there is no place in the church for a young adult to get help without getting a label for life.

For my daughter, she sees judgment instead of love. She does not express an interest in “tolerance” as the media would define it – rather, authentic understanding and care for others because they need Jesus…patience to kindly and gently interact with them, sharing when opportunities arise, differentiating her life choices from theirs from a place of relationship rather than condemnation. “The Truth” is crammed down peoples throats to justify horribly unloving stances. Jesus is the Truth. The Law is not The Truth. Jesus is alive and active and beyond what we can box in. My daughter is sickened by the blanket judgments regularly tossed about in Christian circles. The lost are lost – no doubt about it. However, Jesus did not model alienating whole segments of society in order to proclaim His Truth and perfection and divinity. He loved. His message was “Good News”. The only ones He chastised were the religious who burdened the people needlessly. I think that the older generations need to recognize that not everyone who is “disengaged” has ditched their faith. It is my opinion that much could be gained if leadership boards would prayerfully and humbly consider such concerns.

I greatly value receiving Leadership magazine online because I feel your writer’s are seeking after the heart of God, seeking His ways of reaching out to the lost.
Thanks for your publication!
Blessings,
Cindi

"Jesus is the Truth. The Law is not The Truth."

Look...I get it that there are a lot of people in the Church who totally dig the whole morality bit, and who love, love, love to dump their viewpoint on others.
Resisting them is good, but that doesn't mean we get to toss out biblical teaching in the process to differeniate love from their stupid.
What you wrote in the quote above is so blatanly wrong that you need to correct that view because it will poison your walk with G-d.
Instead, I want you to understand the who of the nature of the Law.

Y'shua is the Law, he's the living embodiment of the Law, he even taught the Law, and more so...but herein is the caveat...he said (paraphrased), "no matter how hard you try, no matter how detailed you get, no matter how particular you are...you will never fulfill the Law in it's totality. Your sinful nature, your entire corrupted character will undermine your attempt each and everytime."
The pharisee's were the legal scholars of Judaism, the Lawyers, the straight and narrow guys in our viewpoint (and they were, upstanding men who were very, very moral, and were the pillars of Jewish society), and how often did Y'shua turn on them for not following the Law in it's totality?
You see, Y'shua didn't dismantle the Law, he explained it..in minute detail...the Law is far more than just a governor of one's daily activity, it should also be the ruler of the heart of the man as well.
The Pharisee's...didn't even come close to obeying the Law because for them...they only thought the Law applied to their actions, and were quite confused when Y'shua said, "no, your hearts are rotten, and far away from my fathers."

Y'shua death and resurrection did not end the Law, all it did was allow those who believe to be granted mercy and grace, and escape the consquences of the Law.

The Law is Truth, and the Truth is Law, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. This why we live in a period of grace and mercy...doesn't seem like it, but it is. What you want to emphasize is the grace and mercy of Christ Y'shua...that will more than differeniate you from the moralists.

This is so, so (sadly) true. Many of my good friends who were active in youth group no longer have the passion and excitement for God that was once fomented by youth retreats, flashy services and extreme sports. I am now 29 and looking back I now believe that those times in youth group, although fun, did not prepare us for the realities of life after high school. Unless you decide to go to Bible college, your built-in Christian community of peers virutally evaporates; the realities of bills, broken relationships and hearts as well as the slow-deadening of ideals are all at times more than the average Christian young adult can bear alone. But above all, the feeling of being lied to by the church begins to creep in when 1) having sex outside of marriage doesn't mean the end of the world 2) you meet people who don't care about God but are intelligent, kind and compassionate 3) you don't have all the answers and the pressure of feeling like you should becomes too much 4) the promised spouse/perfect marriage that is dangled like a carrot infront of you as a youth if you wait for sex doesn't materialize (or isn't as fulfilling as planned) and 5) you experience how many churches don't know how to handle large issues like sexual/physical abuse, addiction and questions about identity. My faith has survived intact throughout my twenties and I am so grateful for Christian community and God's deep grace over my life, but I feel I do understand why so many feel alienated and leave. Fun pizza nights don't help in the dark nights of the soul.

Amidst all the soul-searching, hand-wringing, and coulda/woulda/shouldas, there simply are no easy answers to this mass exodus.

This is a huge heartache for parents who certainly weren't perfect, but did all the right things, sacrificed for their kids, modeled Christ-like behavior, and can look back and say they were faithful.

And this is an opportunity for some deep evaluation by today's leadership to figure out what was missed along the way and what needs to change in the future.

Perhaps we need to incorporate an emphasis on developing a lifestyle of spiritual formation that would be powerfully authentic and relevant to the real life experiences of the young adults in our world.

And are there lessons we as leaders need to learn from those who walked away without looking back?

"Christ is the end of the law for all those who have faith."

No more condemnation for believers.

True enough, the law will not be mocked and while we are in our mortal bodies we will pay the price of our sin.

But the Day is coming when we won't.

Maybe they did not ditch their faith at all. For some there was no faith at all. A certain amount of students merely have an externalized following of rituals - merely following external habit patterns that temporarily feel good and please their parents. This is not a matter of keeping a believer from falling away but making sure faith is real and growing in the heart.

"Of course there's nothing wrong with pizza and video games. The real problem is when they displace spiritual formation and teaching the Bible."

Man's ideas "displacing" God's design:

Is the "displacement" of all parental church time involvement with their teens causing fall out?

The corporate model of church, no matter how mega or small, is expert driven gatherings for crowds rather than God's design of believers coming prepared to participate with word and song to drive the gathering. This fall out may be a result of this sad "displacement".

The corporate model is heavily oriented towards attraction to our campus for crowd oriented events rather than the Biblical example of going to them on their turf for spiritual engagement on a mutual, two-way communication dynamic. Is this fall out due to this displacement?

Often the immediate crowds in our buildings, the anonymous raised hand professions, the flurry of teen activity, the ski trips, is felt to be the work of God and proof of success, but is rather a displacement of what He has asked for and reveals itself in the long run. "My kids like it..." becomes proof that God is working...

A large part of the problem lies not in youth groups, but in the Christian family. Are families reading the Bible to their children? Do parents model what it is to walk with Christ, in a stumbling and imperfect way?

At the same time, I agree that the current model of many youth groups is not as effective as it could be in helping teens on their journey with Christ. I think the "cool" model for youth group is helpful in teaching students that church is a warm and loving place (which is important!). However, this model works better as an outreach tool than as a discipleship tool. Students who are wrestling with questions, desire to grow in their faith, or feel shy or like social mis-fits can easily become lost in the shuffle.

Perhaps, too, we need better supports for young adults as they make that transition into the adult world. A church near my house has a mentoring program for folks in their twenties. I think it's a great idea.

I would like to point out that the so-called "mass exodus" of youth from the church is not the statistical certainty that many seem to believe. For another perspective check out Bradley Wright's "Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites and Other Lies You've Been Told." Not all the gloom and doom perspectives that we evangelicals throw around are warranted, much less helpful. Here is a link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/Christians-Hate-Filled-Hypocrites-Other-Youve/dp/0764207466

Most folks who stray from the church have actually read the Bible rather than the tidbits tossed at church gatherings. They see the God as a bloodthirsty, genocidal murderer, and they reject the judgment, condemnations, and theological pronouncements of the Apostle Paul (like the bit in Romans 9 about how God hates people and has created them as vessels for His wrath, stripping them of their free will so their punishment brings forth the glory of God). They are also uncomfortable with temporary decisions having everlasting consequences (that is, eternal torment).

former-please don't make assumptions that people who DO believe have not read or studied the Bible. I have read and studied it for over 45 years. I am well acquainted with Romans 9 and am thankful to God, because although I have done nothing worthy to be saved, He has saved me. If you read the Bible and decide to not believe it, that's your choice, but don't disparage others who love the Lord. My neurosurgeon is also a pastor, and my family practitioner is a Christian and the son of missionaries, are you saying they're not familiar with the Bible also?

I should also add that a handful of them--born and raised on Christian doctrine--turn out gay, and when they cry out to God... then three choices stand beside them: dying in belief, living a miserable life of self-loathing, or turning away from God.

Most would rather choose not to pull the trigger, instead rejecting the faith that told them to hate themselves.

And then there's me. Limping along, weak and wounded, trembling in fear of the Almighty's wrath, living in sin nonetheless. Some days, I pray that He will have mercy on me and not throw me into the pit when the end comes. I don't believe that He will; His hatred of everything embodied within me is too great. This is one of the days when I look to the heavens and whisper, "Why God? Why me?"

Former--I have felt that way before, too. Afraid--no, terrified. And alone, so alone.

I clung desperately to verses like Jeremiah 29:13--"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart"--even as I struggled to understand scripture.

I sought out people who seemed to have real, genuine peace and hope in their lives, folks who seemed to know the God of love the way I wanted to. And I began to share my heart with them.

And over time, God began to heal my heart. I began meeting Him in new ways, I came to experience His love in new ways.

Searching for hope and grace is a painful and difficult thing.

Grace is reaching back to you, but I know it's hard to believe it sometimes.

Big hugs from someone who has also struggled.

Tim - I agree with your statement that perhaps there had been no faith at all. As cruel as it sounds, I can almost predict the handful of youth kids in my group that will hang up their jersey of faith the second they enter their dorm. I sincerely pray I'm wrong.

Ooii - Spot on, the family doesn't always help; parents in fact have made my work much harder. Youth group is also sometimes treated as the drop-off babysitting arena. There isn't always a vested interest in how it's going.

Mark - I think you're right on here. Some in their late twenties or early thirties who have left the "faith" have also experienced revival into a more mature, grounded walk.

Youth group does not need to be either/or. It doesn't have to be "un-cool" to be biblical or vice versa. I've been doing youth ministry for almost a year and a half (not much time at all) but I have never talked down to them. Where I lack as a leader and a preacher, I have still made certain that I'm not raising children -- I'm raising adults. Sermons and fellowship are prioritized the same way. We have fun but we get deep. Our vision for the youth shouldn't end at 18 -- it must stretch to college life, career, marriage, kids, secularism, media, culture, thought-life.

They must know what they're up against.
The youth want real truth, they hunger for the Bible, they want straight talk. We assume they want to be entertained but that's only true when we continually feed that appetite. Strong exegetical preaching has them coming back for more, and it's what they will expect in college years and beyond.

I was in high school a long time ago - about the time "Youth For Christ" decided they needed to rename themselves "Campus Life". Junior High antics became the norm for all social activities; pie-in-the-face, spin till you're sick, make a fool of people, the 'electric chair'. I absolutely hated those activities but didn't dare admit it because everyone else appeared to be having fun and I was there with all my friends. I was also there because I really was a committed Christian and there was no place else to go. I would have loved some deep Bible study but that didn't seem to be the point. Fortunately, I did get the deeper things in Sunday School and at home.

P.S. sheerakahn - I'm with you on the Law and The Truth. God gave the Law - it's the truth. Your explanation is beautiful.

It's great that the church is beginning to wake up to the fact that young people aren't getting a Christian worldview, but it doesn't yet seem to realise why. Young people don't have a Christian worldview because they're not being taught the Bible, or if they are, it's only for an hour or so a week. How can one hour a week counteract 30 hours spent at a secular school, and another 15 or 20 being exposed to anti-Christian media? We need to heed Deuteronomy 11:19 "Teach them [God's laws, ie the Bible] to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." We need Christian education - then we will start to reverse the decline.

I'm going to step in here, as the mother of an 18-yr -old son who has been to youth groups throughout his teen years, children's ministries prior to that and even a Christian school for a while. He's also come from a single-parent home (since he was a toddler) due to his father's difficulties and bad choices, including his decision to abandon wife and son after raiding bank accounts, and has had less-than-ideal involvement since. Compounding this was a long-term illness on my part that interfered with my ability to function and went without even partial diagnosis for several years.

I'm proud of my son. He's a decent (though not perfect) student who lists "volunteering" as one of his primary hobbies, has been active in Boy Scouts for years, is one of the core group responsible for the church's sound system. He also holds commitment to God at arm's length.

He recently told me that he considers the man who is in charge of church sound and the youth pastor to be his two best friends. I'm glad, but I know that if he wasn't heavily involved in their activities it would be very unlikely he would hear from them again. We trust involvement in activities to take the place of relationships, and approval for work to take the place of love. Individual families do have an important role, but we forget that God intends the family if faith to be a real entity. Biological families in crisis are canaries, perhaps pointing out the ironic errors of our reliance on programs of the institutional church and even idolization of the nuclear family. Our abysmal record in transmitting the faith to the next generation as a whole could be further warning that we've misplaced our focus

by "canaries" I mean canaries in the coal mine, not simply happily chirping birdies. RE: worldview -- I've been active in some pretty intense worldview ministries over the years, and my son has been well exposed. I've also watched kids exposed to very consistent, intense worldview teaching run for the hills. Part of this might be due to competition with false worldviews, I'm sure some of it has to do with some pretty ideologically loaded and poor-quality teaching that often is lauded as "worldview teaching." But I think a lot of it has to do with our corporate failure to live Christ's life in any meaningful way (sorry, shelves full of Christian books and dvds and a library full of ccm don't count). "Relevance" may be a buzzword, but it's also real. Not too many better ways to cast doubt on one's truth-claims than to tie them to a life that doesn't embody that truth when it counts. Love, humility, community ... not optional, and best tested in the tough, confusing circumstances -- especially those that demand serious discernment, endurance and sacrifice on behalf of your brothers and sisters.

For me, still an Ukrainian outsider in our wonderful American, so "all-embracing" Christian community, it is clear:
In all good conscience, my friends, I cannot comprehend you, brothers and sisters, as "Godly parents" dumping your children out of your house and your life, at the age of 18. Talking to some of your daughters, seeing their tears, I can only say - it's an American way, but it's sin! So, repent!
And, please, stop playing "kids church" with your little ones during your church service general message! You teach them to play church and not experience true and living God, Whom we all should love, yet revere and fear also!

Vic, please do not lump us all together! I would never in a million years dump my kids at the age of 18 and just leave them without any means of support, etc. We have 3 kids, the youngest is 18, and we're putting them all through college and when they are finished with their studies, they will be prepared to hopefully live happy lives, loving the Lord as first in their lives always. I love them with all of my heart, and will always be here for them, I will be here to listen to them, and to encourage them, and help however I can. It breaks my heart when people "dump" their kids at 18. From what I have seen, few 18 year olds are ready and able to make it out there in this economy and have a chance for a happy, successful future. We have been married for over 25 years and have always done our best to be the kind of parents that God would want us to be. We have taught them about God and prayed with them since they were infants. Talking about God is something we do daily in our house, so is eating together and praying together.

They sat with us in church and were taught to respect God at very early ages, just as I was taught. We didn't entertain them during the services, we taught them to sit and listen to the pastor, and to pray when we all prayed, etc. There are many more people like us. I am saddened when I hear of people who dump them at 18 as you are. I feel very sorry for those kids, I do know one, and we are trying to help her as much as we can. But it is not all of America, believe me!

Dear Barbara,
I am grateful for your testimony and we, as parents, indeed need some good news these days! I also thought that my generalization will be easily recognized as purposeful, so it won't hurt just virtually everybody. I, however, beg your forgiveness, Sister, for the subject is too painful. At the same time... I can enjoy my children in the ministry today, yet these stories of our Lord's sons and daughters in a hostile world make my heart, truly, ache and cry.

"He recently told me that he considers the man who is in charge of church sound and the youth pastor to be his two best friends. I'm glad, but I know that if he wasn't heavily involved in their activities it would be very unlikely he would hear from them again. We trust involvement in activities to take the place of relationships, and approval for work to take the place of love."

sg -

Thanks for saying this. I'm very involved in children's ministries and have been for years, and I am this person. I know it, and I don't know how to make it any different. I hope you don't mind, but I am going to save your comment and hopefully use it to spur discussion and change in the children's ministry in our church.

Dana - your comment brought tears to my eyes. Hope for a response like yours is the reason I share our story. Thank you!

I'll say a prayer for your ministry, and would appreciate a prayer or two for my son and myself as well as for the ministry leaders in our lives who are trying so very hard (however imperfectly! as all our human efforts are) to serve God and his people. Blessings!

I'm not a youth ministry person just a parent and an observer. But I was in a meeting with other church leaders and this topic came up. "Why are our kids leaving the church?" one woman asked. "Because they were never part of the church," I answered. They're placed in a kid-oriented ghetto that operates separately from the rest of the church and its mission. IMHO, kids aren't being challenged to be warriors for God and the Kingdom, other than the artificial, vacation-like, once-a-year or so missions trip.

And I agree with Cindi that a major part of the problem is the way we do "church."

SG, your sentence,

"We trust involvement in activities to take the place of relationships, and approval for work to take the place of love."

and your follow up comment produce a gut punch of recognition for me. This has too often been my experience at my former Evangelical church, too, and that of some friends there as well who were so discouraged by it they left to go elsewhere. I think it is an acculturation to the American way of life. Very well said, indeed. Glad to see folks here listening to what you have to say.

What an amazing oversimplification and generalization of what we do as youth pastors and youth ministries. Why is the assumption that all every youth ministry does is give out pizza and play video games/ This is a crazy, insulting piece of "work".

Parents, YOU are responsible for helping to develop a "Christian worldview" in your kids. We get a few hours with them, you get a lifetime. Teens don't need a spoon feeder any more than you do at church.

For sake of the argument, consider the only real alternatives I can see coming out of this article. One, youth group is done away with. The result? You think teens are bad off now, what about with nothing? Two, we turn it into a Baptist Seminary. Great, we will make "warriors" (as one poster suggests) out of the about five kids that show up because their parents made them.

Wake up to 2011, things aren't done the way they used to be - and I really wish that all of the alarmists out there would stop trying to say that Christianity is going to end with this generation and blah blah blah. It is limiting God's power to move, and ignoring some really great things this generation is both already doing, and will continue to do.They have a lot of time left.

@Zack: you have made, and responded to, a caricature of the main points made in this peice. No one said that entertainment is ALL that youth groups have been doing. The argument is that it has played too major a role, and that doing so is a hopeless strategy. Do you want to refute any of that , or just act indignant ? Those making these points have as many, or more yrs of experience doing youth stuff as you, and I assume they want to see GOD "on the move" as much as you do. Interact with the points made, and join the discussion. I don't think anyone is trying to sell youth group as it was done 20 or 30 yrs ago, so that is a red herring as well

GregR

Well, 'GregR", I was responding to the article not anyone's post. And I still believe that it was an appropriate response to the points made on the piece. Maybe I wrote quickly out of emotion, but I disagree with the premise, honestly.

Fair enough, but I'll note there are many more possible outcomes if the article is on target (even partially on target). FOr one, maybe youth group, and church in general for that matter, needs some reforming, with a shift AWAY from entertainment being so front and center. There are many calling for this in 'adult' church as well. This article would be just one more to add to that voice. Food for thought. I'd agree that even if things are seriously 'off', what we need is calm dependence on the ONE WHO can set this straight , and not any shrieking or blaming.
Pax

Dan,
I could not agree more! First, unfortunately, an American 501c-3 church operates as a business, creating staff-churchgoers(read, consumers) strange type of relationships; then it separates children from real God experience.

Vik, What does your above comment about 501c-3 have to do with youth groups? How does it prevent them from focusing on training young people in the "...nurture and admonition of the Lord" (Eph. 6:4)?

elegance,
I guess, I can try to go deeper on the subject of how beneficial any golden cage can be to a church, if we could define here how a person, young or old, can be "trained" to become a Christian?

I didn't imply in any way that a 501c-3 is of benefit to a church and you have re-characterized my question. So I will change the style, but not the substance of the question.

In what way does a 501c-3 'prevent' any church from teaching anything they wish to anyone they wish - even to the point of teaching that 501-c3s are evil golden cages?

I think what Vik was alluding to is the church as non-biblical institution, led by a professional hierarchy and dependent on costly facilities and programmatic thinking (youth programs, for instance), which actually interfere with the simple process of discipleship we see in the New Testament.

I agree with your article. I think one of the things that are disturbing about the church today is that many are now becoming much more liberal and pretty much losing emphasis on the truth in the Word of God and dwelling more on feelings, experience, fun and being "relevant" with the worldly, postmodern view of things, even Christianity. Some churches are drifting closer to new age belief. I recently left a church I'd attended for 13 years because the senior pastor (from the pulpit) began showing contempt for and mocking those with more conservative theological views who didn't accept evolution and global warming as gospel truth as he had begun to. He believed, I guess, that the way to get more people into church was to shun traditional beliefs and embrace the world's ways of seeing things. That may work in the short term, but it does not give those who are seeking truth the foundation they need to walk the road of faith throughout their lives. What it does ultimately do, however, is disillusion and confuse those who are searching for God and they end up just drifting away, no matter what their age. The "emergent" church is particularly guilty of these things. I predict that 10 years from now, the "emergent" church will be as dead and empty as the mainline Christian denomination became in the 70s after they embraced liberal theology, like liberation theology and the "social" gospel. Both these movements seek to interpret Scripture in a way that suits ideologies. They keep a form of the Christian faith, but deny the true power of it.