1. Churches do have an active engagement with teens, but many of the young people do not grow up to be faithful adult followers of Christ.
2. There are a variety of reasons people drop out, so it is important not to generalize about an entire generation.
3. Churches are not adequately preparing the next generation to follow Christ in the context of a rapidly changing culture.
5. My church doesn’t believe that any good Christian worship music has been written since 1860.
6. The church I was forced to attend as a child would rather die than change to be more attractive to the youth.
There is a church in my county that has made a hard run at kids 12 to 24. This is a county with a population of only 67,000....that church has tripled in size in it’s three years of existence and it’s youth group alone outnumbers most other churches in the area....combined. They didn’t do it with organ music and dry, depressing hymns.
Young people do NOT want to be bored. Look around at your congregations, are there vastly more elderly than 25 and under? If so, your church is probably boring. It is also dying. Who is going to replaced 85 year old Mrs. Jones when she passes? or 90 year old Mr. Clifton?
That is quite literally a dying church.
I like older worship music, but yeah I see your point.
Lets get down to basics, WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH?
Your comments could be a strategy for any social club I belong to. Ok, let me say it, most churches are club houses.
Tale a look are the 7 churches in revelation. Any judging criteria on growth of church and youth attendance? Most of it is get back to your first love and get rid of wrong doctrine.
The church is not about entertainment or a Chucky Cheese, the movies, or a theme park.
I am not saying either that it is supposed to be boring, but if you’re going there expecting a movie theatre and wearing a poncho because you’re sitting in the first three rows and expect to get wet, you’re not going to church with the right mindset in the first place.
It’s about prayer. It’s about coming to worship God, with the focus for the whole service being about God. Through singing, readings, the sermon, creeds, communion, make an offering, reflection about what you’ve done that week and asking for forgiveness, and later talk with friends, see if there’s anything we can help out with there, leave the guilt and pain with God, get refreshed for the next week, etc.
The whole problem is that we have not trained kids to understand that there’s a reason why church is church and is a solemn and holy place, different from all other places. It is the House of God. It should earn our respect and reverence and it’s not there to entertain us like little kids. It’s not a video game. It’s not a rock concert. It’s not a dance club. It’s not the rec room in the basement. It’s not the gym. It’s not a locker room.
Church is church and if we don’t give it the respect and treat it as a special place, and explain that to our kids they won’t get it. They will get it if we do and we walk the walk in terms of treating it that way.
BTW college is where the major disconnect occurs for most.
“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.
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?