I think Skye covered it well in his book, "With" which I highly recommend to everyone.
I don't mean to be a fan-boy, but Skye does lay out a very good, and detailed view of how we, humans, view G-d, Y'shua, and our place in the universe.

Canadians are cute, cuddly, and oh so adorable, but they're still human just.like.us.

Of course, come to think of it...that is something that will probably irritate the Canadians to no end...a bunch of yanks droning to them like zombies, "one of us, one of us."

Ring..Ring...Canada calling.
hey Yanks, how's it going eh?
Just stuck my head out of my igloo house church to say thanks for studying us. We've been studying you for decades, and finally discovered the border is invisible from heaven.
Ok, kidding aside, we are actually seeing movement among a good sized group of teens and 20 somethings, here in the Toronto area.
While they still belong to various churches, there is a growing egalitarianism among them that is relational and to a some extent missional. The jelly is still forming, as it were, and remains to be seen what shape it takes, but I like what I see so far.
Anecdotal as it is.
They seem to be able to envision a church without borders or fences.
Reminds me of the scripture that a little child shall lead them, although I'm not sure the context was the same.
Blessings all.
And keep your stick on the ice eh, once the lock out is over.
Greg

"What's the lesson?"

We aren't evangelising our youth. They aren't saved. If they knew him, they would look like him, but they don't look like him, so they don't know him.

Someone who is legitimately born again will be have the assurance of 1 John. These people don't.

We (in the Canadian context) simply don't have a clue how to make disciples or worse yet, we fail to take discipleship and spiritual formation seriously. We talk about it as if we are doing it, but few have a well thought out plan for making disciples. We have sacrificed discipleship on the altar of the hip and trendy... follow the trail of money and one will see that most all our eggs are in the big show experiences (Services/worship events, etc). That is the discipleship strategy for most churches. Sadly, stats show that sermons and worship experiences do little to improve a person's character. Unfortunately, we have gone out of style (a natural by-product of being trendy) in the progressive Canadian context as evidenced by the mass abdication of the youth from the present church context. Sadly, I can't blame the youth for seeing through the smoke and mirrors of our present "christian" culture. Trendiness may produce converts but it certainly doesn't make disciples.

The Western culture is surely a huge enemy. We are producing people absorbed with themselves and their wants.

Handing people back to themselves in entertainment style, self-focused ('how-to') Christianity, will not work in the end.

What to do about it? Keep proclaiming the pure gospel. Keep administering the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Keep teaching and encouraging people to have an eschatological view. And pray.

Jesus said, "when the Son of Man returns to earth with His holy angels, will He find faith?"

There will be plenty of 'me' centered religion...but faith is another matter altogether.

Thanks.

2 cents from an L.A. (Stanley Cup Champions) Kings fan.

(you see...anything IS possible!)

There is a huge category missing there...the young adults who love God and identify strongly as Christians but who have had such negative church experiences and can't be bothered anymore. And we aren't very institutional up here in Canada, either, so we don't need to identify with an organization to feel a part of something. As for evangelizing youth, every youth pastor that I've known in Canada has either been treated abusively (at worst) by the church they work for (they stick it out for a few years for the sake of the kids) or at best like the red-headed step-child in the church ministry team...underpaid and underappreciated. The youth see all of this...is it any wonder that they don't want any part of that kind of hypocrisy? I'm thirty, and I've been involved with so many ministries and churches over the years and although there have been many positive times and experiences, there is so much stupidity as well. I've also seen many friends enter ministry and be treated like crap, their hearts and good intentions taken advantage of while they're being wrung dry financially, emotionally and spiritually. There is some anger here, but listen to the bare truth and these things won't be such a mystery. Also, I think that there is an arrogance inherent in assuming that young people are leaving the church because they want to live sinful/immoral lives. Moral compromise happens within church members just as often as outside of the church, and many young adults who don't attend regularly (and I put myself in that category at the moment, even though my time away from services was work related) are just as moral and committed to Christian morality as before. The disconnect often happens because there are certain sins that are not addressed, nay, encouraged within church walls, whilst others are harshly condemned. I do understand that my post is unbalanced in that I'm not extolling the wonderful aspects of church, in which there are many, but this was a post about Canadian young adults not attending, and the reasons given by this author are not the reasons that I see around me all the time across the country.