"I wasn't condescending, damn it. If I deign to condescend, trust me........you'll know it."
Well, if you weren't condescending, now you're menacing.
At any rate, accepting that youth groups are about association, then I would urge you to see what Scripture says about associating first and then seek a church which strives to follow that model. Cast aside your assumptions and go to the Bible first. What Scripture says about associating is profound, yet simple. And it doesn't list youth groups as one form of association that the church should promote. Rather it promotes inter-generational association and familiar association, under the authority of the elders in a local church. Nor does it list youth pastor as an office of the church. I'll keep waiting for a Scriptural reference on that.
Mainstream Christianity is losing teenagers. Check out this from Barna:
"the Barna statistics show that the percentage of teens who are evangelicals - i.e., those who are not only born again but also believe in the accuracy of the Bible, personal responsibility to evangelize, believe in salvation by grace alone, and possess orthodox biblical views on God, Jesus and Satan - have declined from 10% in 1995 to just 4% today. This demise is attributable to growing numbers of teenagers who accept moral relativism and pluralistic theology as their faith foundation."
Of course using that same criteria we are losing adults, also.
The point being, American Christianity needs to rethink itself. I would suggest going back to Biblical basics first. When we get those right, I would wager that things will start to look much better.
Finally, if you take a minute to check out the articles that I gave a link to, you can see much of this flushed out in greater detail and most importantly flushed out exegetically.
Well, I'll just say as un-menacingly as possible here........ahem........that to in any way imply that we're "losing" kids due to youth groups or non-Biblical church structures is just plain silly. I have no interest in reading anything that seeks to imply a correlation. Besides, no one in their right mind could seriously suggest that a 21st-century American church needs to be set up exactly as a 1st-century church in the Middle East. Utter silliness.
As I also pointed out, these groups are not intended to replace inter-generational interactions, teachings, etc. Kids like to hang with other kids, and so that they aren't unequally yoked, as it were, they should hang with other Christian kids. It really is that simple.
If we're 'losing' kids, then we need to take a hard look at the FAMILY. Are Christian values being taught and reinforced at home? I know MANY Christian families who are really Christian parents with unbelievably bratty kids (or far worse). That's not just a Christian problem, it's an AMERICAN problem. Too many are afraid to discipline their own kids and teach them proper values..........and ENFORCE them.