How to keep the next generation in church.
Based on data from Essential Church, the trend looks like this:
For a free sample of the book, see http://www.lifeway.com/lwc/files/lwcF_PDF_Rainers_Essential_Church_Sample.pdf
Another good book on the subject is Ed Stetzer's Lost and Found.
Let's look at it more personally. My oldest son graduated from High School in 2004. He walked across the stage at church at the recognition ceremony along with 20 or so of his classmates. Most of them had been very active in youth group. Very few of them are active in church today. In fact, my son may be the only one.
If you are in the mood for a good depression, do the math at your church. Dig up the list of the kids that graduated five years ago. See if you can figure out how many of them are in church on Sunday. If you are average, the number will be about 70% have dropped out. Whatever the exact number is, it is depressing.
A lot of external reasons are given for this--reasons that have to do with the culture and technology and this and that. I'd like to look at it from a different perspective, taking Average Baptist Church as an example. This is not a mega church, but it is big enough to have several staff, including a full time Youth minister.
Someone said once that your life is perfectly designed to get the results you are currently getting. This is just another way of saying you reap what you sow. It applies to us as individuals, and it applies to churches. Your church is perfectly organized to get the results you are currently getting. If you keep doing what you been doing you will keep getting what you been getting.
I'd guess Average Baptist Church spends $100,000 or more a year on youth. They have a full time Youth minister and a couple of interns. In addition to this, there appears to be a generous programming budget that goes to buy decent gear for the music program, literature, subsidize camp fees, pizza, supplies and all the rest. I'd be shocked if the total was not somewhere north of $100K a year.
This $100K creates a great youth program. No complaints whatsoever. They have great Sunday School, great teaching and music on Sunday night and Wednesday night. Camps. Retreats. Personal discipling by the youth minister and interns. It is all 5-star.
Until they graduate. Then, it pretty much fizzles to nothing. Pennies, instead of dollars are spent on college ministry. And we wonder why they don't come. This is not rocket science. Our behavior is perfectly designed to get the results we are now getting.
If this sounds like your church, here is a thought. Take about a third of resources you spend on youth and spend it on young adults.
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Comments
Rainer has written elsewhere about problems in SBC churches, much of which he attributes to "unregenerate members." He states that "nearly one-half of all church members may not be Christians." Bingo. The problem is not that people are leaving church (stopped attending at a building); it's that they have no relationship with the Lord--we're not telling them the life-saving gospel that will truly lead them to the Savior. So until we change our goal from "how to keep them in church" to "how to get them genuinely saved and into God's kingdom," the exodus will only continue--as well it should, so we don't continue to create false converts.
I have a few other questions about the problem of youth ministries results we are seeing that would be helpful to unpack.
1. Could it be that our youth are not being genuinely discipled (by neither youth ministers or parents)to enjoy God and have a Christian worldview?
2. Could it be that youth ministers don't know what a disciple is and thus don't have a comprehensive Philosophy of Ministry (so they do what ever is popular or whatever gets short term results)? Could it also be that the typical youth ministry's philosophy of ministry is not biblically based and directed? Are we measuring success by secular standards rather than by biblical standards?
3. Could it be that churches are not family friendly or family integrated? Why do we always believe it is good ministry practice to separate youth from their parents? Shouldn't parents take the place of youth ministers/interns in a local congregation? If a church has a youth minister, isn't it his purpose to assist the parents in disciplemaking not become the primary disciplemaker?
4. What about the impact of secular education on all of this? Can youth ministries effective teach a Christian worldview when the kids are exposed to a secular worldview all week long at school?
4. Is this also an indictment of the entertainment addiction of many our youth ministries in general?
I am all for a robust college ministry, but imho that is not the solution. The solution to me is that we need to recover the gospel in our youth ministries. While the Gospel may be part of the ministry, is it really the center of the particular ministry. The loss of gospel centeredness may be the root of the problem, for if the gospel is consistently preaching and taught and genuine conversions are occurring, we would not see the statistics you site.
$100,000.00 does not create a good youth program. Throwing money at a problem never seems to solve it. I think we need more radical changes in our youth philosophy of ministry. This would be good to unpack.
This is one big reason that we have moved all high school ministries off of Sunday morning. We want the high schoolers to serve somewhere.
Another cause of youth dropout is luke warm Christian parents. It's impossible for any youth ministry to undo the effects of so called Christian parents who don't live out their faith. The kids would be better off having godless parents than Christian ones who don't live out their faith. At least then they could see the difference at church and home. We need to engage parents more in the youth ministry. They are the primary disciplers of their kids. The church is just a partner with them. We can't undo what they don't do.
Just my thoughts.
I believe the question is: Do these kids have a relationship with "the church" or a relationship with "Jesus Christ"?
Like the lepers, 9 out of 10 people who attend church in the US today are unrepentant, unregenerate, and are attending because that's what they do...they go to church on Sunday. It's a lifestyle. They might join, they might sing Kum-ba-ya, they might even get a tear or two in their eye now and then if the message is a heart-string tugger, but they've never repented of their sins and allowed Jesus Christ to be their Lord.
Am I being harsh? Perhaps.
But is it not biblical that "you will know them by their fruits." The 9 who you see as "not coddled with enough $ spent on them" are nothing more than trees who have no fruit..."Christians" who have no fruit because they have no spiritual life and no Lord or Savior. For them to walk away is no big deal to them. They have no fear of Hell and they don't see their sin as any problem.
Why not? Because the gospel of sin, repentance, and judgement has been ignored in the US church for over 50 years. To fill the void, Church employees have inserted "decent gear for the music program, literature, subsidize camp fees, pizza, supplies and all the rest" along with "God has a wonderful plan for your life" and "Your best life now!"
Those who have left "the church" are just doing what comes naturally...moving on to the next, better, entertainment. I guarantee you that if societal rules were changed, you would see 13 year olds and up engaging in the same activities (which would not include church) as the 20-somethings. The only reason they are still in church is because it's too difficult to obtain alcohol, sex, and drugs (without that pesky parental interference at home.) 20-somethings tend to move out of Mom-n-Dad's house and have access to the debauchery that teens don't.
Your choice, as a church employee wanting to regain your customers, is whether you will try to compete with the world on the world's terms: sex, drugs, sensory overload. Or, you could do something radical and, like John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, (but not Ringo) you could use your chance to influence them by urging them to repent of their sins and accept the salvation that is found only in Jesus Christ before they end up in a very real hell for eternity.
Do you believe that yourself, Josh?
The one leper who returned to Jesus in Luke 11 understood what had happened to him. The other nine had no need for a God, or Savior...just a healer. They got theirs, they went on with life (until eternal death.) What you are talking about in this blog is no different.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/communitylife/evangelism/thexfactor.html
I agree that we should ask "Are they truly saved disciples of Christ?" $100K youth ministries have not answered this question and I doubt great college ministries will either. More ministries means more segregated churches, when what we really need is cross-generational community, aka New Testament church model based on small group discipleship, community, family atmosphere...Does anyone know what they did with the kids in the NT? Did they send them to the basement/roof top for "Upset the Fruitbasket?"
For me the falling away of our youth in the church today is a real struggle. As an education pastor and a father in a Southern Baptist Church I have viewed this as THE major failure of the church. The fact that we continue to ignore it or think it will change by doing the same thing is crazy. Also, I am also not ready to give up and begin a search and rescue program for our young adults without a fight.
The answer to the problem begins at home. This generation like past generations has grown up expecting the church to do the spiritual training of their children only to see them fall away. I believe what happens in a lot of homes is that they go to church on Sunday to return home and never mention God, open their Bible, or pray for their kids during the week. Mark Holmen says in his book, Building Faith At Home, that, "Faithful Christlike living isn't happening in our homes today." So, our kids don't believe in God because they don't catch us living out our faith. My favorite saying that Mark says in his book is, “Faith is not something that can be taught; faith is something that must be caught.”
The beauty of this is that it is never too late to start living out your faith and when your kids, young and old, catch you reading your Bible, praying, doing a family devotion, and talking about what God has done lately they will notice and some will come to know the answer for our hope, Jesus Christ.
The best thing you can ever do is to put your arms around your child and pray for them out loud. Not a prayer of correction but a prayer of love and thanksgiving. Your kids don’t know your praying for them unless you do it out loud and with them. If you want to break the stronghold of the devil start here!
No one wants to address this because no one wants to admit that they have failed and it’s easier to blame someone else. The next generation is waiting to see what Faith really is and we are just one generation away.
The church has to return the spiritual development of kids back to the parents. This means we have to train the parents on how to do this. Read Mark Holmen’s book Building Faith At Home it will change your focus as a Pastor and a parent. Also, look at AWANA.org they have some exciting numbers when it comes to retaining teenagers in the Faith. (Deut. 6)
Praying for the next generation!
James Stowe