We all know them, the kids who were raised in church. They were stars of the youth group. They maybe even sang in the praise band or led worship. And then… they graduate from High School and they leave church. What happened?
...This isn’t a negative “beat up on the church” post. I love the church, and I want to see American evangelicalism return to the gospel of repentance and faith in christ for the forgiveness of sins; not just as something on our “what we believe” page on our website, but as the core of what we preach from our pulpits to our children, our youth, and our adults.
There’s no easy way to say this: The American Evangelical church has lost, is losing, and will almost certainly continue to lose OUR YOUTH. For all the talk of “our greatest resource”, “our treasure”, and the multi-million dollar Dave and Buster’s/Starbucks knockoffs we build and fill with black walls and wailing rock bands… the church has failed them.
Miserably.
Read Top 10 Reasons our Kids Leave Church.
6 comments:
Have you seen the movie Divided on this topic? If not check it out...http://dividedthemovie.com/
Thank you for your inspiration-you're my favorite blog-so you're all over mine!
Thank you, Alyssa...and yes, I sure have. Another great resource on this issue.
Bambi, I wholeheartedly agree and "Divided" is a super resource, but, it is really our faults as parents first. We have a generation of fathers who will not step up and lead their families, mothers who are not respectful and submissive towards their husbands, parents who do not discipline nor disciple their children and then we send them to the church to do our jobs for us. Then they, in turn, look to the world to see what they are doing to tell them HOW to reach out to others...oh, my goodness, how we have fell. Lord, have mercy on us. Francis Schaeffer said, "Tell me what the world is doing and I will tell you what the church will be doing in 7 years." Wow! That really opened my eyes. I do believe we have a new generation believing, trying, searching, listening to God for how to live, how to really live people, but it is going to take time and all we can do is pray and raise our children to walk in His will and His ways every moment of every day. Thank you for your wise words and love for our Lord.
Always Experiencing Him,
Jody
Agree wholeheartedly, Jody. It is a multi-layered issue to be sure. One of the reasons I loved the article I linked to is because the author touched on so many different reasons for this huge problem. Yes, Lord have mercy on us! It's the only hope any of us (or our children) have! Thanks for your insightful comment as always! :)
Another take on this issue is presented in the book "Already Gone" by Ken Hamm and Brit Beemer. They actually did research with George Barna to identify the reasons we are losing our youth. This book is one of the reasons we homeschool and keep our children with us during church services. I think they reference "Already Gone" in the movie "Divided". A worthwhile read. I found the article you linked to to be on target too, the comments were particularly interesting, of course I didn't have time to read all 400+ comments!
I think it is parents responsibility to send their child to church even after high school. Church is the best education center where your kid will learn most of the good deeds.
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