Posted on 11/26/2011 6:39:04 AM PST by NYer
“Basically if your unofficial mission is to bore the snot out of me from the minute I walk in the door, I ain’t coming back. That’s where American Christian youth is at today.”
I don’t think the Catholic outreach is effective, even when they draw young people, because they don’t get vocations from them and they don’t instill absolute faith in them. To have a barn full of young people with no faith accomplishes nothing.
Acts 20:9 may cast some doubt on that.
LOL...you got me there. Very good! :)
Actually, it’s my grandchildren. No, their dad is not Catholic and although he agreed to raise the children Catholic when he and my daughter were married in 1998. But being as she has fallen from the Church, and doesn’t go to Mass herself, I guess he doesn’t feel the need to.
“To have a barn full of young people with no faith accomplishes nothing.”
What does having an empty barn accomplish?
“35 hours of indoctrination in secular government schools verses 2 hours of Biblical instruction is a sure way to quench the work of the Spirit.”
This I totally agree with.
I think today a child is going to be ‘bored’ no matter what. My wife says kids go nowhere anymore that they have to sit and listen and be attentive. With the schools and culture the way they are then it comes back to the parents. I see other posts though saying that their kids do not attend church anymore. It is an under 40 problem it seems to me. I do not have an answer except to say, the young need to ‘buck up and get real’, endure the boring, dig deep in all services to experience the Spirit’s voice, decide I am going to live for God first no matter what. It is difficult with folks being so mobile and so much being offered to them as an alternative. But we had to make decisions and so the young must also.
Anyone who “rethinks faith” never had it in the first place.
JN 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall be entertained into eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to bore the world, but to save the world through exiciting organized events. 18 Whoever is entertained by him does not mind spending oh...say a couple hours on their Sunday at a church, but whoever does not attend the event will miss an exciting opportunity for socializing with other friends because he has not attended the exciting event held in the name of God’s one and only entertaining Son.(Aren’t friends all that matter) 19 This is the verdict: Bordom has come into the world, but punk ass spoiled kids love darkness instead of light because their heads are full of feces and so are their hearts. 20 Everyone who does love the church club house event is a fool because they will not come into the light for fear that they may miss a football game or perhaps a chance to watch a porn movie. 21 But whoever lives by entertainment comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God (Who’s real job is our great entertainer)
After after all he works for us right? Santa Claus in the sky. Right?
Secularism is the consequence of Western Christianity’s creation of a dualism between faith and reason.
LOL. But I hope you got my point. You cannot get the Word into kids if you can’t get them to listen. You cannot get 18 to 20 year olds to stay in church if you bored them every Sunday they were forced to come listen to you.
Now, I LIKE a teaching style that a lot of teens don’t. I like the professorial Pastor because I want to leave church feeling like I’ve been taught something. I don’t “have” to feel I’ve been taught something, but it is nice to learn.
I also enjoy some hymns, sung to accoustic guitar (piano or organ are simply horrible in any church I’ve heard them in) but prefer more contemporary music. Yes, I know that we are there to honor and worship our Lord but I am not too sure that He has as much a problem with contemporary worship music as some of my older (I’m 42) friends in church have.
You can go ahead and call me “wrong” in my views on boredom and youth leaving the church but in every example I have seen, I am proven correct. In the church I currently attend there are maybe 30 people on a GOOD day. 25 are over 60. My wife and I are over 40. My 15 y/o step-daughter IS the youth group.
Worship music is hymns, sung to a horribly out of tune piano by three people they call a choir. NO ONE else is singing. Only half are standing. The Pastor, while I enjoy his sermon, is 80. He looks like the Pastor from the old “Poltergeist movies.” But he knows his Bible far better than I do. He has a teaching style that I like but most kids fall asleep to within minutes. My step-daughter has even taken to volunteering in the nursery just so she won’t be bored every week.
The church I attended prior to my marriage? Contemporary worship. The 200 + youth group is dancing and singing in the aisles. The Pastor taught the word but also taught you why todays’ lesson is applicable to your daily life. They went after these kids (12 to 24) in their homes, their schools and their places of work. They started three years ago with a total congregation of 100 or so and the youth group was maybe 20. Today they have almost 400 every Sunday, the youth outnumber the 25 and over crowd.
Someday soon the church that I currently attend will close it’s doors for good. My old church is having to buy a new building or start holding 3 services every Sunday.
I believe that EITHER of these approaches will bring people to Christ. Neither is necessarily wrong. But one of them is going to reach a LOT more of the youth for Christ than the other will. Why?
Boredom.
Wow, you need to find a new church home.
“What does having an empty barn accomplish?”
Not much, but it hasn’t come to that. The Roman Catholic Church is better off having a smaller faithful core than a large Protestant membership.
No kidding? “Every time I try to leave, they pull me back in!” LOL, seriously though it’s a dying church, there are a cadre of seasoned citizens at the top that would rather watch the church die that to change a few things to make it more enjoyable to the youth.
That’s it in a nutshell.
I am positive that it will close or my family will move on but my son (due in a few weeks) will not be raised in that church because I don’t want the poor kid thinking that church is supposed to be so boring that you would rather be doing literally anything else.
“The Roman Catholic Church is better off having a smaller faithful core than a large Protestant membership.”
They reach a lot of unbelievers with that strategy?
It is the strategy used by Christ Himself; when He tells the rich man that he must give up his worldly goods and follow him, the rich man can’t. Jesus at that point doesn’t pursue him saying, “OK, how about half?”.
The Church was always going to reach only a portion of the people; that was then and now.
I am not talking about changing the message or toning down the Word for any generation.
Just changing the wrapping in which it is delivered.
Many young people today have no interest in something that says, “You can’t...”. It is a challenge to reach them without compromising the message; the current trend seems to be reaching out to them with no solid catechetics, but rather social events.
In a secular society, it is a real challenge.
In the Catholic Church there is an incredibly vibrant youth movement. It is called Latin Mass traditionalism. Every other part of the Church is largely the domain of grey-hairs.
Your apparent premise is flawed. You seem to be saying that a faithful adherence to Catholic doctrine will drive away the people. However, the experience of the past few decades points to the opposite conclusion. The great exodus from the only started after Church doctrine and the mass were watered down in the wake of Vatican II.
Today, those segments of the Church which reject the errors of Vatican II enjoy the fastest growth and greatest retention of youth.
I have to agree with you, mas. In our TLM community, the most vibrant groups of young people can be found in the Altar Boys and the Girls’ Schola.
These young people must put in hours of rehearsal and months of training in order to become part of their respective groups, but they don’t mind. They are alive with joy at having the opportunity to serve, either on the altar, or in the choir loft.
It is truly gratifying to see dozens of kids, from 10 years old, on up to late high school-age, rejoicing in their faith and making life-long friendships. Many of the kids are homeschooled, and I think that plays a HUGE part in their willingness to participate, because there is little or no negative social pressure on them. Sadly, this cannot often be said of those children who attend school — even Catholic school, to be honest. Church-going teens and young adults are frequently mocked, and many can’t take the pressure of the mocking.
My own kids are part of the group I mentioned above (they are altar boys), and while I can’t see the future, of course, I have high hopes that my children will not be among those who turn away from the Church once they are out on their own. IMO, having such a large group of one’s friends who are of like mind goes a long way in keeping them engaged in their parish life. In any case, I pray fervently that they remain faithful and engaged Catholics.
Electric guitars and drum kits don’t do it for these kids. Banal, “hip” sermons don’t either. Nope...give ‘em Gregorian chants, wafting incense, and a sermon that MEANS something, and they’re happy as clams.
Regards,
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