Archive for the ‘Rallying the Church Around Youth Ministry’ Category

Are we loosing teens while they are still right in front of us?

According to a study by Ken Ham, founder and president of Answers in Genesis, we’re loosing the next generation of believers before they even graduate from high school. (details here)

He found that:

• 95 percent of 20- to 29-year-old evangelicals attended church regularly during their elementary and middle school years. Only 55 percent went to church during high school. And by college, only 11 percent were still attending church.
• Nearly 40 percent of the surveyed twentysomethings first had doubts about the Bible in middle school. Another 43.7 percent said they first doubted that all of the accounts and stories in the Bible are true during their high school years. Only around 10 percent said they first became doubtful about the Bible accounts during college.

What do you think? Are we loosing teens, even while they are still attending church?

Some say America walked away from Christianity decades ago when church turned into habit and Christ became a religion.

For many, being a “Christian” is the family they were born into and simply why they try to live a “good life.”

The reality is that reaching this generation is more complex than trying to “get them back into youth group.” Teens are falling away from the saving knowledge of God’s love, and this trend has been happening for years, so we must be well equipped in our response.

So what can we do?

I believe that there are several principles that we need to follow in this rescue operation:

• Direction: Finding guidence and strength in the Lord
• Understanding: Knowing what makes this generation completely unique
• Relationships: Why we cannot rely on “programs”
• Turning points: Creating meaningful moments with teens

I’ll be addressing each of these in future blog posts. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to subscribe so you won’t miss a thing.

Update: All of the follow-up posts are now available–see links above.

If this doesn’t get you worked up and ready for action, I don’t know what will.

• 88% of children raised in Christian families leave church at the age of 18, never to return (SBC).
• A majority of adults no longer consider Christianity America’s default faith (Barna).
• 64% of decisions for Christ are made before the age of 18, and 77% are made before the age of 21 (Barna).
• An estimated 4% of the “bridger” generation, or Gen Y, will be Bible-believing Christians when they reach adulthood. Their grandparents’ generation: 65%. Their parents’ generation: 35%. (Bridger Generation).

4%! 4%!!

We can’t sit back and watch this generation be stolen out of our own churches and homes. We must take action, and we must do it now, before they reach the pivotal age of 18 and make decisions about what they believe that will last for the rest of their life.

If you know anybody that needs to hear this, please pass it on. You can use the links below to share this post, re-post on your own blog, or just copy and paste this web address into an email.

This is bigger than any of us alone, and by God’s grace, we need to work together to rally around our young people–starting today.

(Special thanks to Ron Luce for sounding the alarm and bringing many of these shocking statistics to light.)

We are living in an incredibly fast-paced world, and we can’t even imagine the world we are preparing our students for (that is, as my pastor always says, if Jesus tarries).