Why Christian youths are leaving?
B.Temsuinba Longkumer
National Youth Commission
Evangelical Fellowship Of India
Years ago as a new youth pastor, I read James S. Stewart's book “The Life and Teaching of Jesus Christ”. In it I found this statement: "Christianity began as a young people's movement. In thinking of Jesus and His disciples, that is the first fact to make quite clear. It is quite certain that the original disciple band was a young men's group. Most of the apostles were probably still in their twenties when they went out after Jesus." Since Christ focused on young people while He was on earth, I have decided to invest my life in reaching the youths.
It’s an alarming time for us. Christians constitute the second largest religious minority in India next to Islam. The 21 million Christians in India account for 2.34 percent of the total population. Nearly 40 per cent of the population is in the age group of 13 to 35 years which is considered as "youth" by the Indian Government. And this youth percentage is higher when compared to any other country's youth population. India contributes about 33 per cent of youth population in the developing Asian countries. Within next few years, it is predicted that India will be young country, not in terms of the age but because the nation will be run mostly by young leadership, in most of the important government, business establishments, private and public sectors. On the other hand, just to think what the future looks like for young people and the kind of world they are likely to inhabit, our ministry to the young people becomes more and more challenging. The future for young people is in a continuing fast changing environment full of associated complexity, possibilities, anxiety and confusion.
When these are the facts and figures of what’s happening, are we not suppose to base our ministry strategies’ basing on our contextual need of the hour? How does your church ministry understand towards the youth? What importance are we giving to the youths and if so “is it sufficient enough?” Many churches have a very strong ideal vision of building up a strong church but practically are we training up leaders to keep up with the vision? For once, have you ask the question – why is there a vacuum in your church?
You might say we have strong youth ministry with youth pastor and hundreds of youths. The fact is that, over two-thirds of the Christians make their decision for Christ before the age of 18. However, more than 65% could not list four or more of the Ten Commandments. This shows the lack of penetration of the church into the youth culture. As Christians, instead of trying to understand and build on strategies as on how to reach to youths, we often react against the youth culture, rather than responding to it with the love and compassion of Jesus Christ. That’s the reason of Youth exodus problems.
National Youth Commission, (Evangelical Fellowship of India) conducted youth pastors and leaders seminar basing on the theme “The Youth Exodus problem,” the main question was trying to understand: why youths are leaving churches and drifting away from spiritual growth and what can we do. Here are some related studies:
"Spirituality in Higher Education":
• 52% of college students reported frequent church attendance the year before they entered college but only 29% continued frequent church attendance by their final year.
• 40-50% of students in youth groups struggle in their faith after graduation.
• Church attendance “drops during the teen and young adult years.”
Some reasons of “Youth Exodus Problem” out of the survey conducted with the youths:
Responses from the youths:
Why our youths leave the church? Is it because the church has little offer?
• “When life gets tough, when the rubber hits the road..Often times post high school...the church seems like a social club.”
The church is unwilling to:
• Talk about sex, talk about homosexuality, talk about divorce, talk about porn, talk about war/peace (except from one side). When that is what the kids are being bombarded with and dealing with.
“Why stick around when out of touch pastors and preaching about tithing when Mom is an alcoholic and Dads got a girl on the side.”
“Why go when honest comments are not heard?”
There is no church, where one can walk into and say " I MIGHT BE GAY." or "MY DAD BEATS ME" or "I GET HIGH, IN FACT I DID JUST BEFORE I CAME" without contempt, disrespect and shame? The church is not providing help.
“I am frustrated with the church….I have lost my faith in the church.” “The members in my church were so cold….I have stopped attending.” “The church tends to be the opposite of Christ.” “I feel that the church is a farce.”
“I feel I get more out of religious discussions with my friends then I do out of church.” “I felt the church offered nothing to me personally.”
“The idea of church being a place for sinners to come is a fantasy. Judgment is passed on you if you are perceived to be a sinner.”
“The reason for the dropping out of church seems to be highly interrelated. Those who choose to disconnect perceive the church as irrelevant because they sense they are unaccepted and their needs are neglected. They also feel unaccepted because they don’t discern their church as attempting to provide them with relevant and targeted programming. Various personal issues and a high distaste and disappointment with perceived intolerance, hypocrisy, and condemnation have estranged young adults from the church.”
How can we most possibly not only stem that tide but reverse it?
1.Our highest calling Encapsulating the Gospel and right preaching.
The highest calling of church is to preach the Gospel, but when the Church no longer knows what the Gospel is, it can’t transmit that Gospel to the next generation. For many reasons we make commend on how the younger generations are, in the same way we should be careful of how we are ministering to this group of youths. One cannot afford to be laid back and fool them for so long. More than you think, today’s teens/youths are experts at analyzing sales pitches. youths today are far more aware of cultural and societal deficiencies. They are far more savvy consumers than even their parents, and they recognize when they’re being manipulated. This generation today, which is far more aware of breakdowns in our rhetoric about societal excellence, is less likely to be satisfied by simple answers. So an attractional youth ministry model that has no genuine Gospel meat on its bones won’t be a tempting meal for them. If we don’t start fixing this lack of instilling a Gospel-based, nothing else that follows will do any good.
2. A complete cradle-to-grave educational plan for people in our churches is essential.
In many churches, this is one of the common and major problem and the reason for exodus problem. No church has a handle on a complete educational philosophy. Many churches have three to four pastors in one church but the irony is that not a single one is devoted to ensuring that people of all ages learn the fundamentals of the faith. That’s what I call a genuine Christian ministry scandal. The church leaders apart from Sunday preaching should insure that they have cradle-to-grave educational plan, and mot just only have but make sure that it’s relevant to all age groups.
When we are talking and looking into Christian education, its not only about having one but how effective is it? On this regard, I want to suggest one simple way that church leaders can do: the church can come out with year long table for preaching: topic and Bible passage. Once set, I believe that every age group within a church should be hearing the same message, only geared for the appropriate age group. If the pastor preaches on John 1, then every instructional group in the church receives teaching on John 1, (meaning that same topic/bible passage will be shared in the Sunday school, youth service, teen’s ministry and others).
At present what most of the churches are doing is leaving every class as on do what you feel like doing. Every-class-does-its-own-thing disaster that is the educational plan at most churches. It’s one reason why parents give up on their children’s spiritual educations. The church splits the family the second it hits the Sunday morning, with everyone going his or her way children to Sunday school, teen’s to teens club, young adult to youth group. Then when the family reconvenes, each person has been schooled in disconnected topics, which makes it impossible for parents to discuss those topics with their kids.
But with everyone learning the same basic topic, conversation opens up. They know because they studied the same topic. The lack of a comprehensive educational plan (and the church leadership’s lack) is one of the reasons for people walking out of the church. No one gets a complete vision of the direction for growth.
Another scandal in this regard is that our churches spend hand over fist for stupid programming that has no lasting value, but we can’t see the need to pay someone to coordinate and enact the educational vision for the church. Many years and still in many churches we have no paid trained Christian education staff but only volunteers. The results are obvious, though, and we need to get serious about the horrendous state of Christian education in our churches. Most seminarians and pastors never got the training to coordinate the educational direction of a church that we believe they did. So, it is important to pay a trained Christian educator to do the job and stop grousing about it.
3. A youth ministry model based on changing context: moving from the ancient method of doing youth ministry and be replaced by a model that meets modern needs.
4. The youth minister’s job should be to work himself out of a youth-only job.
I do believe that we still need youth ministers. However, their job responsibilities must be completely rethought.
For many years the most effective youth ministry model involved parents teaching their own children the faith. Parents had to know what they were talking about. It meant they had to understand the faith too. Children’s got their information from the one source most important in their lives. The faith had greater meaning because they saw it modeled by their parents rather than by “professionals.” But it’s sad to see that very few parents do the same. The reality today is that, many parents can’t spend five minutes telling their own kids about Jesus—mostly because they haven’t done the research themselves.
In this regard, ministry of youth pastors becomes more challenging. The present-age role for the youth minister should be not as a semi-cult leader for teens/youth alone but as a resource for parents. The youth minister’s another main goal should be not be only ministering to teens/youths but also teaching parents to become the primary transmitters of the faith to their own children.
Parents don’t teach their kids the faith because:
they don’t know it themselves,
they don’t know how to teach,
and they can’t find the time.
Let’s be honest, though; today’s parents can’t shoulder all the blame. They weren’t given the right tools to do this all-important job of transmitting the faith.
5. The entire church is responsible for passing along the faith to the next generation.
Many churches are making the mistake devolve into age and affinity group ghettos. We’ve lost the coherence of a family, which we can see in the result on Sunday devotional services. We talk about denomination but within the church settings we are divided, we break down everything and everyone into their generic components.
In doing so, one must be cautious when churches separate the elderly from the youngsters. We put the singles into their group and isolate them. Often, many churches frustrate the mission of the church as a whole by not seeing the value of all people in the training up of the next generation of Christians. When we plan our cradle-to-grave educational philosophy, we must begin to incorporate a more holistic view of ministry not just as a collection of nuclear families, with parents teaching their kids, but as a church family, with people of all ages serving as instructors to children.
Our churches have to give them that meaning and work to involve our teens/youths in the adult life and purpose of the church (not only in area of volunteering/ushering on Sunday service) in more pragmatic ways of doing ministry. I call this as “Rising up Joshua Generation.” We must stop looking down on the inexperience of teens/youths and instead stoke the mission God is giving to each of them. We need to encourage their gifts and get off the way as they use them. When teens/youths feel needed, they are less likely to drift away. Attractional ministry will only hold teens/youths for so long; instead, they need to be integral to the Great Commission. Billy Graham noted long ago that “the one thing all teens need today is a challenge.”
What might this future look like for churches, for youth workers and for young people? The world we live in is changing ever more rapidly. It seems that each week a new gadget is launched or a new technological advance is announced. Ministering to the present youth has become more challenging then before as on: How can we remain connected to our theological traditions and spiritual roots while effectively engaging with the modern world that young people experience? How will we continue to make the story of God and his relationship with humanity accessible contextually? How can we equip youth workers and young people to have the tools needed to reflect and respond to life theologically? There is a tension between theological practice and making theology accessible. We need to have contextual approaches for young people. Churches has great challenging role to reach young people, in enabling young people to engage with churches and in equipping them to engage, as Christians with their world.
