Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Are we really "losing" our young people?
We are losing our young people!
I have been hearing this for almost 50 years. I first heard this when I was a teenager and our church wanted to hire a youth minister. I still hear it today, both as an elder and as I travel around the country preaching in various places.
I have been thinking quite a bit about this and I will share some of my thoughts in future posts, but first I want to think about some of the problems I have with this statement.
If we never had them, are we really losing them? If young people do not really buy into the Jesus lifestyle, then can we really say we have lost them? I suspect we never had a lot of them to begin with.
If they go to another church and stay faithful to the Lord, have we really lost them? And yes, I do have problems with young people that leave my fellowship and go to places that do not believe those things that Scripture teaches really matter. But having said that, I find many young people in house churches, cell group fellowships, and various churches with differing worship styles. But if the core convictions are the same, I don't believe we have "lost" them.
I am mostly concerned that this statement is used as a scare tactic to bully others into accepting changes -- or resisting all change -- in the name of "keeping our young people".
I am very concerned about any statement that says: "if we do not do so and so, we won't even have a church in ten years." Unless the so and so is Jesus, I would be very nervous about people using scare tactics like this.
Just because church, worship, and ministry may look different over the years does not mean we have lost anyone. I am fairly confident that I have never seen or heard of a church that is doing everything just like they did in the New Testament. But some things are the same and the matter. Those are the things that are important about keeping our young people.
The one thing absolutely critical to this discussion is that this is about our kids growing up and getting to heaven. God wants them there. Satan doesn't.
Let's start framing the discussion in those terms.
I have been hearing this for almost 50 years. I first heard this when I was a teenager and our church wanted to hire a youth minister. I still hear it today, both as an elder and as I travel around the country preaching in various places.
I have been thinking quite a bit about this and I will share some of my thoughts in future posts, but first I want to think about some of the problems I have with this statement.
If we never had them, are we really losing them? If young people do not really buy into the Jesus lifestyle, then can we really say we have lost them? I suspect we never had a lot of them to begin with.
If they go to another church and stay faithful to the Lord, have we really lost them? And yes, I do have problems with young people that leave my fellowship and go to places that do not believe those things that Scripture teaches really matter. But having said that, I find many young people in house churches, cell group fellowships, and various churches with differing worship styles. But if the core convictions are the same, I don't believe we have "lost" them.
I am mostly concerned that this statement is used as a scare tactic to bully others into accepting changes -- or resisting all change -- in the name of "keeping our young people".
I am very concerned about any statement that says: "if we do not do so and so, we won't even have a church in ten years." Unless the so and so is Jesus, I would be very nervous about people using scare tactics like this.
Just because church, worship, and ministry may look different over the years does not mean we have lost anyone. I am fairly confident that I have never seen or heard of a church that is doing everything just like they did in the New Testament. But some things are the same and the matter. Those are the things that are important about keeping our young people.
The one thing absolutely critical to this discussion is that this is about our kids growing up and getting to heaven. God wants them there. Satan doesn't.
Let's start framing the discussion in those terms.
Comments:
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Steve, I also get incredibly frustrated with this argument! In a recent book titled "Christians are Hate-filled Hypocrites and other Lies You have Been Told," Sociologist Bradley R.E. Wright discusses a lot of data which suggests that overall the big "C" Church is definitely NOT losing it's youth.
Another book I read called "American Grace" by two Economists suggested that the youth of America is actually taking a swing back towards more involvement in religion.
However, I can see how individual churches would perceive that they are losing their youth. Every year some of them leave for college. After that, young people often like to go to churches with other young people. Sometimes they congregate around charismatic leaders, strong programming, or cool music.
In summation, I think the idea of "losing young people" argument is much more about particular churches, not as much about young people losing faith.
Daniel Clark
Another book I read called "American Grace" by two Economists suggested that the youth of America is actually taking a swing back towards more involvement in religion.
However, I can see how individual churches would perceive that they are losing their youth. Every year some of them leave for college. After that, young people often like to go to churches with other young people. Sometimes they congregate around charismatic leaders, strong programming, or cool music.
In summation, I think the idea of "losing young people" argument is much more about particular churches, not as much about young people losing faith.
Daniel Clark
Go in to most congregations and look and see how many young single professionals you have between age 25 and 35. That is one of the big groups that you are losing and just don't have. I realize they are a very difficult group to deal with and they aren't tied down so they don't show up every Sunday. However they are the ones who are highly educated and want to be able to ask very difficult questions of those who are knowledgable. Getting to ask those questions though is turning out to be very difficult task. That is why you have people like Patrick Mead who answers questions on his blog. These are often ugly questions and the answers he offers are quite Helpful. Those answers probably are all that is keeping some people from losing all faith.
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