Evangelicals Fear the Loss of Their Teenagers

NY Times ^ | 10/06/06 | LAURIE GOODSTEIN

[nonsporting]

“I’m looking at the data,” said Ron Luce, ..., “and we’ve become post-Christian America, like post-Christian Europe. We’ve been working as hard as we know how to work — everyone in youth ministry is working hard — but we’re losing.”

It's hard to "win" if the enemy has them 30+ hours a week, and you get them for 4 hours/wk.

It's hard to "win" if the worldview, which the kids have absorbed, is repackaged leftist ideology and not legitimate christianity.

I'm not saying "impossible." I'm saying "hard."

Christian kids who are homeschooled are the least likely to turn their back on their faith when they go away to college. And why is this? I think homeschooling parents do better at figuring out who and what their children are: "Train up a child in the way he should go (as God has made him), even when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6.

And homeschooling parents do a whole lot less 'damage control' than their public schooling counterparts: "Do not be deceived: 'Bad company corrupts good morals.'" (1 Cor. 15:33, a Greek proverb by way of Menander!)

[montanus]

Evangelical seminaries are bursting at the seams. They can't add faculty to keep up with the boom.

No doubt in my mind that most young people reared in churches leave. But those who are staying are serious about their Christianity in a way that some previous generations weren't.

[miss marmelstein]

When people choose to return to their faith, it's becomes stronger than ever, I would imagine.