Unintended Consequences: How the “relevant” church and segregating youth is killing Christianity.
I recently spent six-months doing a rotation as a hospital chaplain. One day I received a page (Yes, hospitals actually still use pagers). Chaplains are generally called to the rooms of people who look ill: People gray with kidney disease, or yellow with liver failure, discouraged amputees, nervous cancer patients. In this room, however, was a strikingly attractive 23 year-old young lady sitting up cheerfully in the hospital bed, holding her infant daughter and chatting with family and friends.
Confused, I stepped outside and asked her nurse, “Why did I get paged to her room?”
“Oh, she looks fabulous. She also feels great and is asking to go home,” the nurse said.
“…And you are calling me because?” I asked in confusion.
The nurse looked me directly in the eye and said: “Because we will be disconnecting her from life support in three days and you will be doing her funeral in four.”
The young lady had taken too much Tylenol. She looked and acted fine. She even felt fine, but she was in full-blown liver failure. She was dying and couldn’t bring herself to accept the diagnosis.
Today I have the sense that we are at the same place in the church. The church may look healthy on the outside, but it has swallowed the fatal pills. The evidence is stacking up: the church is dying and, for the most part, we are refusing the diagnosis.
What evidence? Take a gander at these two shocking items:
1. 20-30 year olds attend church at 1/2 the rate of their parents and ¼ the rate of their grandparents. Think about the implication for those of us in youth ministry: Thousands of us have invested our lives in reproducing faith in the next generation and the group we were tasked with reaching left the church when they left us.
2. 61% of churched high school students graduate and never go back! (Time Magazine, 2009) Even worse: 78% to 88% of those in youth programs today will leave church, most to never return. (Lifeway, 2010) Please read those last two statistics again. Ask yourself why attending a church with nothing seems to be more effective at retaining youth than our youth programs.
We look at our youth group now and we feel good. But the youth group of today is the church of tomorrow, and study after study after study suggests that what we are building for the future is…
…empty churches.
We build big groups and count “decisions for Christ,” but the Great Commission is not to get kids to make decisions for Jesus but to make disciples for Him. We all want to make Christians for life, not just for high school. We have invested heavily in youth ministry with our lives specifically in order engage youth in the church. Why do we have such a low return on our investment?
What are we doing in our Youth Ministries that might be making people less likely to attend church as an adult?
What is the “pill” we have overdosed on? I believe it is “preference.” We have embraced the idea of market-driven youth ministry. Unfortunately, giving people what they “prefer” is a road, that once you go down it, has no end. Tim Elmore in his 2010 book entitled Generation iY calls this “the overindulged Generation.” They ask for more and more, and we give it to them. And more and more the power of God is substituted for market-driven experience. In an effort to give people something “attractive” and “relevant” we embraced novel new methods in youth ministry, that 20 years later are having a powerful shaping effect on the entire church. Here are the marks of being market-driven; Which are hallmarks of your ministry?
- Segregation. We bought into the idea that youth should be segregated from the family and the rest of the church. It started with youth rooms, and then we moved to “youth services.” We ghettoized our children! (After all, we are cooler than the older people in “big church”. And parents? Who wants their parents in their youth group?) Be honest: Have you ever thought you know more than your your student’s parents? Have you ever thought your youth group was cooler than “big church”?
- Big = effective. Big is (by definition) program driven: Less personal, lower commitment; a cultural and social thing as much as a spiritual thing. Are those the values that we actually hold?
- More programs attended = stronger disciples. The inventers of this idea, Willow Creek, in suburban Chicago, publically repudiated this several years ago. They discovered that there was no correlation between the number of meetings attended and people’s spiritual maturity. They learned the lesson. Will we?
- Christian replacementism. We developed a Christian version of everything the world offers: Christian bands, novels, schools, soccer leagues, t-shirts. We created the perfect Christian bubble.
- Cultural “relevance” over transformation.We imitated our culture’s most successful gathering places in an effort to be “relevant.” Reflect on the Sunday “experience” at most Big-box churches:
- Concert hall (worship)
- Comedy club (sermon)
- Coffee house (foyer)
And what about Transformation? Is that not missing from these models? Where is a sense of the holy?
6. Professionalization. If we do know an unbeliever, we don’t need to share Christ with them, we have pastors to do that. We invite them to something… to an “inviter” event… we invite them to our “Christian” subculture.
7. “McDonald’s-ization” vs. Contextualization: It is no longer our own vision and passion. We purchase it as a package from today’s biggest going mega-church. It is almost like a “franchise fee” from Saddleback or The Resurgence.
8. Attractional over missional. When our greatest value is butts in pews we embrace attractional models. Rather than embrace Paul’s Ephesians 4 model in which ministry gifts are given by God to “equip the saints” we have developed a top-down hierarchy aimed at filling buildings. This leaves us with Sunday “church” an experience for the unchurched, with God-centered worship of the Almighty relegated to the periphery and leading of the body of Christ to greater spiritual power and sanctification to untrained small group leaders.
Does not all of this work together as a package to leave us with churches full of empty people?
Here is an example: Your church. Does it look like this?
If you look closely, you will see the photo on the right is of a nightclub, rather than a church. Can you see what I mean about “relevance” and the clean Christian version of what the world offers? Your youth room is a pretty good indicator of what your church will look like 15 years from now. Because of the principle “What you win them with, you win them to,” your students today will expect their adult church to look like your youth room.
In summary, “Market Driven” youth ministry gave students a youth group that looks like them, does activities they prefer, sings songs they like, and preaches on subjects they are interested in. It is a ministry of preference. And, with their feet, young adults are saying…
…“Bye-bye.”
What might we do instead? The opposite of giving people what they want is to give them what they need. The beauty is that Christianity already knows how to do this.
Once upon a time our faith thrived in a non-Christian empire. It took less than 300 years for 11 scared dudes to take over the most powerful empire the world had ever seen. How did they do it? Where we have opted for a relevant, homogenously grouped, segregated, attractional professionalized model; the early church did it with a multi-ethnic, multi-social class, seeker INsensitive church. Worship was filled with sacrament and symbol. It engaged the believing community in the Christian narrative. This worship was so God-directed and insider-shaping that in the early church non-Christians were asked to leave the building before communion! With what effect? From that fellowship of the transformed, the church went out to the highways and byways loving and serving the least, last and lost. In that body of Christ, Christians shared their faith with Romans 1:16 boldness, served the poor with abandon, fed widows and took orphans into their homes. The world noticed. We went to them in love rather than invited them to our event.
The beauty of where we are today is that, unlike the girl in the hospital bed, our fatal pill could still be rejected. It is not too late. We can leave the culture-centered models we have been following for more Christ-centered ones. More ancient ones. More rooted ones. And the most beautiful thing is that students actually enjoy them.
So many have commented on this post in the last month that I did a follow-up: O Yeah! And other things I wish I would have said on “Cool Church.”
the gospel side 
This is dead on. I haven’t been back to church myself in a few months because while I enjoy contemporary music in worship, I can’t get past the marketing that has taken over contemporary churches (lasers and smoke machines during worship, overly hip pastors dressed in overly hip ripped jeans…). There seems to be too much worry about putting on a great show, and that same mentality has driven youth ministry for years. I reposted this on Facebook, and a good friend also reposted it on her Facebook. She was in church several days a week through childhood and high school. Accepted Jesus as a young girl. Did all the ‘right’ things a youth minister would want a young girl in the church to do. She hasn’t been back to church since graduating (10 years). Same is true of her 2 siblings. She still believes Jesus is the son of God, but has no desire to return to church based on what she saw there as a kid, and what she continues to see ‘Christianity’ stand for in the media, news and culture (and how often those stances are so far removed from the things Jesus concerned himself with and spoke most often about).
Hi Matty,
I missed you tonight at the Central Phoenix reunion club. Good times with old friends. It is a sad phenomenon to watch many of those we ministered to drop church…thankfully for many it is without dropping Jesus. The real pain is when they drop the savior as well.
I’m extraordinarily confused how one can drop the church and retain Jesus. Can a chicken run around without a head? For a few minutes only.
If we’re going to take holiness seriously, we have to take the Scriptures seriously wherein the Holy One is revealed and to which the Spirit is self-bound. They’re pretty serious about the eternal significance of the church. Acts? Ephesians? Virtually any book of the Bible? Are we reading it? The church is there and is commanded to be loved and cherished by us.
John Bunyan has a section in his Pilgrim’s Progress about this phenomenon, and sadly, the comments here reflect “the pilgrim who does not turn in to the church beautiful.” What a famished life! There are the pilgrims who don’t know the glories of the church and so pass her by. They are on the celestial road, but don’t know, and don’t stop for nourishment or to give it. But the above comment is not written as one who fits this bill. They are written as one who knows, but rejects because of bad experience and passivity.
I understand there may be cities in the US particularly where a “good church” (sound preaching, sound sacraments, sound discipline, to be short) isn’t an option. But I reject the idea this is normal. If you live in 98% of the cities in the US, you’re probably within driving distance. Time to stop using excuses regardless of experience, get out of bed and Starbucks on a Sunday morning, and love the church again, no matter the distance.
I agree with the thrust of the article and the conclusions. Well documented phenomenon (here and elsewhere) and well written article. But the idea of, “I had a few bad experiences of “hip” churches, so I haven’t been back,” should be rejected. Please, for the love of Christ and your own maturity (to say nothing in detail of those who need what you have been given by the Spirit), go back to Church.
Hi Jonathan,
I am absolutely with you on “DON’T Leave!” However, the 20 somethings are already gone. Kinnamon is trying to figure out how to get them back. I am placing the blame on those of us in youth ministry who didn’t connect people to the church and made them consumers of religious programming.
Yeah, I’ve read countless summaries like this. It just simply is what it is.
The real question though is this… How should one feel about the chaff getting separated out?
Should one be joyful?
Should one mourn?
A lot of these churches have prayed their way into these ministries, so God many days and many nights about how to reach the lost.
There’s a significant credibility gap here.
It just is what it is. Perhaps somebody ought to ask the Holy Spirit what we ought to be doing.
Perhaps we all ought to hear.
Hi Brian,
My blog is looking like a bunch of earlier responses never posted. Sorry about that. Thank you for weighing in! I do not believe that things simply are the way they are. They are what we have made them to be. I think you make a good point about the chaff being separated. I too am heartbroken over those who have not connected with the body of Christ…and am excited that the data is now so irrefutable that the church is seeking new ways of being the church. Blessings as we all seek God in this.
Brian’s post shows one the apathy our churhes are dealing with during these times. Very sad indeed. I always asked why so many churches the children don’t sit with their parents. I won’t even sit in front of the youth at our church. It sounds like so much paper being sifted. Or fall leaves being tossed about. The whispering from the young people while the Pastor is speaking in scandous to me. And when I mentioned it to the Pastor and the other adults in the church during our Wed evening Bible Study they all agreed that the young people did talk a lot during church! I couldn’t believe my ears.
What has happened to our churches. My children sat with me when we went to church. I remember one Sunday when I was about 13 years old. My 2 cousins, my sister and myself were in church (ages 13 to 15) and decided we were going to get up to go to the bathroom during worship time. The Pastor stopped talking and said “Misses (last names here) where are you going?” We said we were going to the restroom. He said “I think all of you young ladies are old enough to wait until the service is over.” We all took a big gulp and sat back down. We were scared to death our parents would find out. Now even though our parents were not there that morning didn’t mean they didn’t control our behavior, especailly when we got out of line. I never forgot that minister for not reporting back to my mom. My mother was a very strict disciplinarian. We had a right to be afraid. And my cousins mother, sister to our mother was the same. But now you have parents that are right in church while thier children talk and pass notes during service time and do nothing about it.
I think you make some very good points in your article and I have angered a few teens in my life b/c I wouldn’t bend to what “everybody” else lets them do. They are grown now and are still all friends with me and laugh about how angry I used to make them, but now that they are older they can see that I only had their best interests at heart.
We certainly need to pray lots more than we do! Amen
The Holy Spirit has already told us what we are to be doing. The Word of God provides sufficient guidance on how God wants His people to worship. Worship is the way of sacrifice: sin, ascension, fellowship. Of course this needs to be fleshed-out in practice, and the scriptures provide this too. Remember that the word of God is living and active, perfectly capable of telling us about both the forest and the trees.
For a good book to help unpack what the scriptures say about worship, check out Jeffrey Myers’ book The Lord’s Service.
Hi Jeff,
Amen. I haven’t checked out Myer’s book but will.
Myer’s book is super helpful.
Thanks. I will Amazon it.
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Hi Joe, Thank you for reposting my article. I have read your blog before. You both write and link lots of good stuff!
I like a lot of what you are saying, but a few observations:
1. You’re a little late to the party. The focus on being missional has been going on for 10-15 years. This is a problem from almost a generation ago, that many of these guys in “ripped jeans” are on the front lines of fixing.
2. The title is terrible. Being hip isn’t the problem you’re addressing, its the lack of content which plagues both cool (too much focus on preference for entertainment) and uncool (to much focus on preference for tradition). When we placate preferences rather that proliferating principles we are not doing the mission. Placating the preference for tradition over the gospel got us in this mess, the boomer’s preference for the “Next Big Thing” deepened it. A generation is rising that despises hype and is looking for truth. Youth ministries are teaching teens to look beyond their preferences (at least the ones I’ve seen) Youth ministry a generation ago was all about planning a better event. This generation would rather be digging wells in Africa than going to another party. See point 1!
Many of the problems you identify are real areas to ward against, but the missional church has been preaching this for long enough that from the evidence I’ve seen, most of the “cool” churches are doing exactly what you are encouraging them to. Some of them are just putting on a show to attract a crowd, but don’t look at a few shallow examples, and think that’s what “relevance” is all about.
Hello Pastor Bill,
Thank you for your comments.
1. I agree that the blog post is pretty late.It is the substance of a seminar I was doing for Urban Youth Worker’s Institute three years ago- so it is late even for being late. 🙂
2. You are right that the title is bad. “Unintended Consequences” is the real title. I had just come back from a meeting in Tucson where they have a multi-site church named “The Cool Church.” So the title was a reaction to that. The lack of content in churches is a surely a problem. Is that not a direct result of making Sunday morning an “experience” (to use Northpointe terminology) for the outsider? I was really addressing the complicity of youth ministry in where we are today. That we are the root cause of the “relevant church.” Someday in the not so distant future those youth ministers will be senior pastors. I was trying to help them have an “aha.”
The biggest issue for me with my post is that I appeal to the same dangerous ethic that created the problem we are in: our desire for “effectiveness” and the idea that big=effective. When I point out “11 scared dudes took over the world” I am shamelessly appealing to the success ethic. Right now young adults and youth would like to do something “epic.” If youth ministers do service as a way of keeping attendance up (or liturgy…or arts…or yo-yo’s for that matter) rather than as a way of teaching students to love doing the things Christians have loved doing for 2000 years then we will have perpetuated the issue of market-preference led ministry- which was my real argument. We must have Scripturally driven, theologically robust, actively transformational youth ministry not large ones. In a day when hundreds of youth ministers are giving senior high to the interns and taking the junior high simply because they don’t want an understudy with a larger ministry than them, well that is letting numbers drive the bus. In any organizational structure, and especially the church, we become what we count. We are always a reflection of our metrics. I am an Episcopal priest. We count numbers of churches. As a result we have a ton of churches but our national Avg. Sunday Attendance is 59. Well that is a small group, not a church. In the evangelical world Average Sunday Attendance is the metric: “butts in pews.” A mini-mega (3000 ASA) friend of mine said it well, “When butts in pews is your highest value there is no reason for your senior pastor not to have an Octogon on stage on Sunday morning and challenge people to “fight for Jesus.”
“When butts in pews is your highest value there is no reason for your senior pastor not to have an Octogon on stage on Sunday morning and challenge people to “fight for Jesus.”
That’s actually happened up in Seattle. There’s some sort of Cage Fighting church up there where they pound the crap out of each other in the octagon then preach the altar call.
And “Putting Butts in Seats” is also the reason behind all those pro wrestling gimmicks chronicled over at Wrestlecrap.com.
And can I just say that this sentence is completely impressive: “When we placate preferences rather that proliferating principles we are not doing the mission.” Well done! If you hold a writing seminar I am so in!
And with alliteration worthy of Twilight Sparkle!
Bill, I totally disagree with your point #1. Well, I agree that the author may be a bit late (which he acknowledges) but I couldn’t disagree more with your belief that the hipsters are “fixing the problem.” I believe they’re making it worse, by making church into a well choreographed, Vegas style show, with all the bells, whistles, and fog machines. The author is right, church should be about building disciples and not about having a high energy show that makes people all emotional but is forgotten by lunch time Monday.
Or even a low-energy slick show. Or, what is new, the ONE movement for young adults in which it is amazingly choreographic including built in “authenticity.”
Mattarino! You have a really ‘cool’ blog name 🙂 I enjoyed the blog and shared it. Bill is correct about the timeline of missional focus, give or take some years, but is really missing an imperative principle. ‘The wind blows where it wills’. We do not control the spread of information anymore than we control the Holy Spirit. There are still many churches, and geographical areas as a whole, who are still not missional and have never been engaged in a conversation or by a blog like yours. I had a church leader from a cool mega church in the area respond to your blog favorably and gratefully. I live in a Tri-City area of over 500,000 and conversations about missional focus remains eye opening for many, church leaders. It’s staggering how many blank stares you still get when you try to have a conversation with laity.
Great Blog post Mattarino! Still right on time for so many of us uncool ones in the fight.
Very interesting insight! And, at least for my two adult children, very true. From the time they were infants until they grew up and left home, we were always in church and they were in the youth group. Neither have been to church (except for Christmas and Easter) since they left home. My daughter is 33 and my son is 28.
Reblogged this on musingsofedwina and commented:
This was such an interesting, eye-opening article, I wanted to share – with permission. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think!
Thanks for sharing. I am sad to hear of your children’s non-participation. I came to faith at 17 and was nurtured by Young Life leaders. I would not have ended up in the church at all except that people who loved me threw me into leadership. Even then, my participation was much like eating broccoli: I did it because I knew it was good for me even if I didn’t particularly like the taste.
I’m believing that the day will come when my children will be back in church. “Train up a child….”
I love the comparison with broccoli!
Matt, I can’t agree totally with your assessment. (I am 66) I remember being in a church in the 1970’s where the adults from young to seniors preferred to pay for missions rather than doing them. From my personal experience and from watching other adults in churches, the worst thing for a Christian is to not go out to serve. You can grow and grow your own faith, but if you are not going out to serve, your faith is selfish and dries up. I see the problem with youth today as an extension of their parents’ and grandparents’ drawing in upon themselves. Another issue in the separation of youth is that adults are not always willing to incorporate music and worship styles which are of interest to the youth. The hymnals have continued to change as previous generations found music that they preferred. Their parents and grandparents allowed incorporation of music more desirable to the younger generations. Too many middle aged to senior citizens are not willing to extend their worship beyond their own desires and preferences. Where is the Christianity in that? We are called to go out and meet people where they are. When we hole up in our church and demand only the music we like, we have already drawn a circle around ourselves to keep out those who don’t want to do it the same way. Perhaps you and I are on the same page, except that I don’t agree keeping worship in the same liturgical style as within the past 100-150 years is the way. I don’t know the answer, and I don’t think anyone really does. We need to help ourselves be better at reaching out to meet people on the paths. Churches I have gone to include mission trips for youth. Yes they include things they like to do. But it also includes working in mud, or in ghettos, or in poor areas of Mexico, etc. They worship with those where they go to help. They learn other languages. They learn the joy that can fill your heart when you do God’s work. Most of those youth have continued in church when they went to college and then became contributing adults in their communities. I am not going to discount God’s ability to keep people following God. And if you plant faith in a child’s heart, you can bet they will return to God at some time in their lives. And perhaps it’s time to realize that holing up in a building is not necessarily what God wants. Maybe God wants us to be on the road to outreach.
Well said!
I’m not totally onboard with this commenter’s assessment.
Youth programs in my parish seem to be a way for kids to earn their community service credits so they can graduate from high school. Where will they go this summer?
My 20-something son, who wouldn’t have a thing to do with the cliquish youth group of his teens goes to worship to listen to the Pastor and his sermon. He went when he was in college as well. His first semester he arrived home and informed me that the “Catholics” (he attended college in a Catholic-heavy state) could be in and out in 45 minutes. For him it’s not the music or the service, it’s the words. He’s looking for the message and it’s better if it doesn’t take all day.
Hi Ginger, I wanted to make sure you saw Pastor Nina’s reply: Matt, I wanted to reply to Ginger, and couldn’t find a place to do that, so I tagged onto your reply to me. Ginger, praise God for people like you and your son. As God said to Abraham, “You (are) blessed to be a blessing.” Ginger, I hear you saying that you have a spiritually mature son who knows the value of worshipping God and continuing to grow spiritually. You say he did not care for the cliquish youth group. So where did he learn about God, other than of course the Holy Spirit working in him, …from his parents. That is why it is so important that we build up the parents to be disciples who make disciples. Their children will learn about God by living with those who love God. May God continue to bless you and your family as you work to build God’s Kingdom.
Here was mine: Great reply, pastor Nina! Thank you for beating me to the punch. And great post, Ginger! Obviously you are a mom who loved, prayed, talked God in the home…and whose son saw through the smoke and mirrors of the youth program. The irony is that we did the smoke and mirrors to help the son see the Son.
Hello Pastor Nina,
Thank you for weighing in. I think you are right describing the poverty of soul in church people that want to be served but not to serve. I am in a tradition that follows Sunday lectionary readings. Mark 10:45 is coming up next month. I would hope it would be convicting for many.
I certainly would never argue for a hymnal period. Again, to critique my own tribe, we seem to think our hymnal is inspired. In the mission church I am a part of we do not use the hymnal (although we use many songs from it on the screen). A very smart friend once said, “Worship is the realm of the young.” So we have young people leading and playing the music. As Archbishop Temple said, “Church is the one organization that exists for the benefit of those not yet a part of it.” What much of the evangelical mega-church has done is push that principle to the extreme. We can sing music with modern instrumentation in places where that is contextually appropriate without lowering the sermon to a 20 minute self-help messages in which the Bible functions as a reference book.
What we are attempting to do at our church plant is modern music in the ancient framework of the earliest Christians. It has a shaping effect toward Christ-directedness. Then we encourage everyone to live, breath, eat, work and play for the sake of others. I do not know if it will work. It is an experiment. However, it has made it 1800 years that we know of, so it seems to have a good shot at it. We are young, unfunded and have gone from 20-80. So the jury is still out.
I absolutely agree with your encouragement of the church to serve others. Most of our folks serve in ministries to the body and missions to the world: a feeding program, youth and children’s work, mentoring, at-risk young adults, etc. Many of our folks are also bi-lingual. We would love to go on an out of country mission-but we are mostly low-income, so that is an issue, and some of us are not legal, so leaving the country isn’t really an option. All this to say that I am certain that you are right- God wants us to be outwardly looking as a body.
Thanks again for commenting.
Matt, I wanted to reply to Ginger, and couldn’t find a place to do that, so I tagged onto your reply to me. Ginger, praise God for people like you and your son. As God said to Abraham, “You (are) blessed to be a blessing.” Ginger, I hear you saying that you have a spiritually mature son who knows the value of worshipping God and continuing to grow spiritually. You say he did not care for the cliquish youth group. So where did he learn about God, other than of course the Holy Spirit working in him, …from his parents. That is why it is so important that we build up the parents to be disciples who make disciples. Their children will learn about God by living with those who love God. May God continue to bless you and your family as you work to build God’s Kingdom.
Great reply, pastor Nina! Thank you for beating me to the punch. And great post, Ginger! Obviously you are a mom who loved, prayed, talked God in the home…and whose son saw through the smoke and mirrors of the youth program. The irony is that we did the smoke and mirrors to help the son see the Son.
Matt, I would love to hear more about your church plant. I am hoping to do the same in Chicagoland soon. I hope to create an ethos of godly risk for the sake of others. Not sure if it will work, but I think it is what God is calling me to…
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Thanks for posting my article. I have read your blogs many times. Great stuff! I actually feel much cooler than I did this morning thanks to you. 🙂
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Thanks for posting me, Don!
I could not DIS-agree more. As a Youth Pastor with 25 years in youth ministry I fail to see the connection between having a separate youth ministry and kids leaving the church. [ You placed the blame squarely on this] Most of the churches I know of with the Youth Rooms and Youth Centers also have good discipleship and total family programs. What does a youth ministry do? The same thing the other ministries do. It provides the means of grace to the younger group. The youth who came through my youth programs knew they would grow up and be adult member and leaders int he church. And. many are. Youth programs are a skeleton to build relationships and community on.
You are wrong to take a statistic of youth leaving the church and blame it on Youth Ministry. Go and read deeper into the statistics before you place the blame on separation. That is not the cause. Look deeper. You missed it.
Rev. Richard Bailey
Hi Richard,
Thank you for weighing in and being willing to disagree!
The blog article comes from a seminar I put together a few years ago for the Urban Youth Workers Institute. Interestingly, when I did the seminar people over 35 would sit with their arms folded and youth workers under 25 would literally be standing and cheering. I can say that they resonated with what I was saying.
You are obviously building a group that feeds into the larger body of Christ. I can tell you that many are not. In my years on Young Life staff I had many youth pastors in my area that did light shows and fog machines with very small amounts of Scripture, community building, sharing, service, etc. They were doing what they were forced to do by their senior pastors: the 10% metric…which, since high school lasts 4 years and life lasts 80, means that they are being pressured to be 2x as effective as the rest of the church. This forced them to do market driven things to draw a crowd. Then when those youth pastors become senior pastors they utilized the training they received: namely, how to generate numbers without theological reflection. Church boards drank this up like free beer at a wrestling match.
Let me ask you this: If students are leaving the church when they go to college and not connecting with a church in college and then not connecting when they come home. Why? Who was the last spiritual leader they had? Was it not us? What didn’t we do? Ken Moser says, “What you win them with, you win them to.” When we won them with market-driven inviter events and not spiritual formation we built programs based on being a taker rather than a giver to a community. When they were not relationally present with us they left.
If you are building young people that are in church with adults you are doing exactly what future posts will advocate as part of the way forward.
Btw, I am glad that you are faithfully serving Christ by serving young people after 25 years. Way to go!
First, I really enjoyed the original post and am enjoying the dialogue in the comments. Just a quick comment on this particular thread with Richard. I think Richard is being a bit hyperbolic, but the point I do see is, there are more things to consider as to why so many teenagers are leaving the church other than just the youth pastors and youth ministries. They are A problem, but not the ONLY problem. Other considerations would be Parents (primarily according to scripture), Globalization (less homogenized communities), the media, public schools, Colleges and Universities, The “Adult” Church. I’m sure there are more.
A final comment on parents. I am a 10 year youth ministry vet. Much of the pressure, at least in my context, to have an attractional, events driven ministry comes from the parents. Maybe not most parents, but definitely the loudest parents.
The reality is, all these kids are not leaving the church for any one reason, but an interconnected web of many reasons. However, the issues raised in this post are important and should be seriously considered.
Richard, why is it wrong to use statistics to prove a point?? I’m constantly amused that after decades of pouring countless amounts of money and resources into youth ministry with paltry results, that people think we need to continue on. That makes zero sense. We’ve done the church and the youth no favors by helping them to believe that church is a place that caters to their every whim. Then, when they turn 18 and we ask them to blend in with the “big church”, we’re stunned that they say “no thanks.”
Hi Gary,
Thanks for defending the idea that statistics indicate real things in the real world. I think we have had exactly the results in the church that we should have expected. You get out of systems what you put in. I am not saying we should dis-invest in youth ministry. Unled things die. Well-led things thrive. We have merely become what we counted. When I was in YL we counted clubs, summer campers and conversions. We became what we counted. In the church when someone asks, “How was youth group?” they expect to hear a number as the answer. We need to radically rewrite what we are inspecting and expecting. Then, when those people become senior pastor they will have been trained in something that results in disciples.
The problem that I have with this article is that it overall almost equates having coffee in the foyer, a pastor or youth pastor who wears jeans, to being unbiblical. Coffee & jeans don’t make a church either godly or ungodly, anymore than being traditional makes a church either godly or ungodly. I feel ashamed to say that 5 years ago I would have read this article through different eyes. I would have thought “right on!” However, after actually going to a “cool” church for several months, my opinion has changed. What matters isn’t what the preacher wears, whether there is coffee, whether there is a rock band or an orchestra or just a piano, is the FRUIT. The Bible says we will know them by their fruits. If a church is fruitful (winning not just “converts” but disciples & disciple-makers, including those from the youth department), then that is what matters. In our several months at this church I spent 8 working with the youth department. I have seen first hand how our jean-wearing youth pastor bleeds his heart out for the youth of our church. Yes they have games, meals, activities, and fun worship songs (Did I say “fun?” A few years ago I would have felt saying that was a sin.), however when the youth pastor takes the stage to give a sermon (yes, sermon) to the youth, he challenges them. “Don’t just come here to have fun,” he’s said. “Don’t just come here to see your friends.” He challenges them to not only be disciples for Jesus, but to be disciple-MAKERS for Jesus. He gives them mini-challenges, sets bars, and gives practical things they can do to make this happen. They aren’t interested in numbers…as in the numbers of people sitting on their butts in seats… but in lives being changed for Jesus. Aside from that a youth pastor can only do so much. I read in one of your responses to a comment, “Who was the last spiritual leader they had?” attributing why students leave the church to the youth ministry. I would answer your question, not with the response of “youth ministry,” but the child’s/teen’s *parents*. The PARENTS were the “last spiritual leader they had.” What a child/teen sees for 18 years of his/her life inside the 4 walls of their own home is a huge factor here that has gone overlooked in this article.
Hello mom,
Thank you for weighing in. I have a combination of “Amen” and “I think you are attributing other’s comments to me.” For example, I never wrote a word about blue Jean wearing. I wear blue Jeans. I also would never attribute the issue to motive. Having been in youth ministry for 29 years and having been in ecumenical contexts in which I was friends with most of the people doing youth ministry in that place, I can say, that out of the hundreds of professional youth ministers that I have known, I have only met one person whose motives I questioned. The youth ministers I know love God and want kids to experience Christ. We all long for a lifelong faith rather than a high-school commitment. So, I have no question about motives. I do specifically question the fruit. The fruit of what we are creating, unless at least 5 national studies are all dead wrong, is specifically NOT disciples in any measurable way…unless you measure fruit as youth group attendance.
I do agree with you wholeheartedly that parents are called to be the primary shapers of children’s spiritual lives – Deuteronomy and Psalm 78 are clear in that regard. The question, However, is what do youth pastors do to resource parents to be that spiritual leader? Do they have youth services at the same time they could (and I think should) be in church with those parents? Does the youth pastor use the youth program to create relationships cross-generationally or is it a front-rear ministry in which we preach and they listen? How are youth being trained to do ministry after us? Is it more of the golden-gifted few up front or is it everyone prays, everyone shares, everyone opens the Scriptures and learns how to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them? How are they being taught to articulate their faith and share it on campus? Are the students sharing Christ with them themselves or always inviting them to the adult led event?
Just questions. Your youth group may be much different and answer these in ways that are community building and give people a sustainable connection and commitment to the parent, the elderly lady, the small children, the larger body of Christ. I can tell you that in hundreds of churches this is not happening.
Great post.
The last we (anyone) needs is to be handed themselves back to them at a worship service.
Traditional worship is an external Word that comes to us in spite of what we want. As was rightly mentioned here, it is what “we need”, and does not look like us or this culture.
Thanks, very much.
Steve, that is awesome! I will quote hereafter be quoting you regularly. Well said: “The last we (anyone) needs is to be handed themselves back to them at a worship service”
I borrowed it from my pastor.
Glad you like it, Matt.
Of course, it should have read “the last thing…”
Christian replacementism. We developed a Christian version of everything the world offers: Christian bands, novels, schools, soccer leagues, t-shirts. We created the perfect Christian bubble.
Until you can go from Altar Call to Homegoing/Rapture without EVER having to interact with one of those Heathens (except for drive-by prosletyzing sallies).
“Guitar Praise — Just Like Guitar Hero, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”
“Praise Ponies — Just Like My Little Pony, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”
“Testamints — Just like Altoids, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”
“Christian Chirp — Just like Twitter, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”
“GodTube — Just like YouTube, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”
“Seek & Find” — Just like Google Search, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”
“Johnny Hammer — Just like Justin Beiber, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”
Here is an example: Your church. Does it look like this?
“YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND RIGHT ROUND JEESUS RIGHT ROUND…”
If you look closely, you will see the photo on the right is of a nightclub, rather than a church. Can you see what I mean about “relevance” and the clean Christian version of what the world offers?
From a late-night post-game talkfest with my old Dungeonmaster:
“NOTHING GETS OLD-FASHIONED FASTER THAN OVER-RELEVANCE. EXCEPT PRETENTIOUS OVER-RELEVANCE.”
Headless unicorn guy,
Howl. I had your post read to me by our foreign exchange student as I drove him to school. I was laughing so hard while driving that I almost wasn’t alive to approve your comment.
Reading me is worse than texting, huh?
P.S. I didn’t make up anything in that post. It’s all real.
I have seen the “Spinning Jesus round” guy (thanks to the Concilior Anglican blog). Pretty weird.
Reblogged this on Dover Beach and commented:
I want to endorse everything that is written here.
Matt
Could you email me? I am pastor of the Church of the Redeemer in Mesa, AZ.
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Dear Matt,
I was in campus ministry for 20 years. I wrote an article for Plumbline, published in Dec. 1991 in which I said some of the things you have here. In that article I tell the story of a young man who told me later in life that he was angry at the Church for not giving him youth experiences throughout college and beyond. He said his real revelation came about when he got through his anger and realized that he had never really been a part of the church, but had simply been a part of youth groups — cells within the greater body.
I shared my experience that college students who had come from smaller (often rural) congregations more easily translated into college ministries because they had never been isolated in their own congregations. I identified this as the isolation of young people out of the church. Integration into the daily life of the congregation seemed to integrate them into the church long term. Isolating them into small groups seemed to isolate them out of the church.
When everyone in a faith community is expected to be a part of that community — young and old — there tends to be a life-long commitment to their faith. Not in all cases, I know, but in many cases. As I have kept in touch with former students over the years I see that those who continue in the church are the ones who were a part of the whole from the beginning and not isolated into peer groups.
You have written an important article. Thank you.
Ron +
Ron your response is very interesting. As a stat-collecting nerd, I would really like to see someone research on the difference in church retention by rural, urban and suburban context.
If I am late to the party you were well ahead of your time!
A great approach to this article Ron……..always interesting to hr=ear your comments.
I’m a 22-year old who left the church at 18 and will never return, despite being forced to attend Sunday school, Sunday worship in the “big church”, Wednesday youth group, Wednesday youth worship, church camp, lock-ins, and mission trips. I agree that burnout and poorly desgined youth groups are a problem for you – but the real problems are much deeper:
1. You will never be cool or attractive to youth as long as you’re anti-sex. Waiting until marriage is laughable and so unpopular that 98% of Americans have premarital sex. Couples now think cohabitation before marriage is the responsible and prudent thing to do.
2. Your biggest draw, which is providing a loving community where all kids can belong, is completely lost when your church preaches a bigoted message on homosexuality. Nothing short of absolutely embracing the validity of LGBT identities will suffice to correct this.
3. Fundamentalism is nearly impossible to maintain under modern liberalism unless you completely isolate kids, yet they will hate you for crippling their ability to survive in modern society if you do this. Individualism and tolerance are more appealing, but provide no strong reasons to stay in the church.
4. The whole God thing just seems like a silly myth with no evidence to back it up. Faith seems foolish.
Hello Rae,
Thank you so much for sharing. All I can say is I am deeply sorry that we did not care for you in more real way. I can feel the pain in your description. As for number 4, I think many today would say, “Hey, we in the church ARE a trainwreck! But please don’t give up on God because his people are knuckleheads.” Faith is a difficult thing. Our life has many twists and turns. You speak of “Never.” As an old guy, I can say that “never” is a long time. A decade from now it might well be me logging on to your blog to report a faith crisis and you be encouraging me. I was once a very evangelical atheist. In the Count of Monte Cristo, when Edmund Dantes told Abbe Faria that he no longer believed in God, Abbe Faria responded, “It’s ok. He believes in you.”
You may find this foolish, but I think God is honored by your honesty.
very good response
This article is dead on. How do I know? I’m part of the 20-30 yr olds that have not come back to church. the only problem I have with your article is the premise that we ‘should’ go to church to begin with. my understanding of God has shifted because I realized ‘God’ is not someone or something that any one completely understands at this point. There are people who claim to understand him, but they are not divine beings or ‘more spiritual’ than anyone else, in my opinion.
The reason i left the ‘cool’ church is exactly because these new fantasies about what God can do; he can be in a rap song, in a metal song, etc… none of these are relevant to why/how God would exist, or does exist. That being said, after further questioning my true beliefs, I have found that even the most orthodoxy church can’t answer the questions I need to have answered in order to call myself a Christian.
Although, when I die, I am aware there may be nothing out there. But if the Christian version of God does exist, I will see him then. I don’t think there is any reason to waste the time going to church every week ‘to be a christian’ however, I would definitely support the idea that you should go to church ‘to gain strong moral standing, grow the community, teach yourself humility, and prepare yourself to think outside of the subjective human existence…’ otherwise we are all just getting dumber, in my opinion.
Regardless, I don’t think that it’s ALL the churches fault for having less attendees, I think it’s also a good, scientific move toward a better understanding of God as he really exists, or not. Which the church may just not be involved with. It is more internal.
What someone like me needs is the ability to not fear being ashamed or outcast because I’m courageous enough to ask the tough questions in a community of Christians. I never understood the retaliation of Christians who get defensive about looking at Christianity objectively and pondering some hard questions.
Thanks for the article.
Hi David,
I am an Episcopalian. Our motto is “Questions are always welcome.” I do think that, done well, church is one of the greatest tools for human thriving. We just aren’t seeing it done in a way the builds connectedness, autonomy, Jesus and other centeredness and mystery, majesty and awe before God.
Interesting reading…..Not sure I agree with all of it, but certainly some of it. The statistics you gave at the beginning would be a lot more meaningful if we had the statistics BEFORE we had the mega churches for comparisons. Good article though and certainly food for thought!
Wow. Spot on
Why aren’t more seeing and saying this????
Reverend Marino,
I appreciate your thoughts on this subject. Having grown up the son of a United Methodist pastor, in fact a descendent in a long honorable lineage of United Methodist clergymen, I share your assessment of the modern, market-driven TV dinner version of the faith. I do prefer high church with tradition, liturgy, organ music, reverence, contemplative prayer, stained-glass, communion, well-educated clergy, wooden pews, and arched ceilings. Additionally, I prefer churches that embrace the social justice message of Christ’s teachings and a show a deep commitment to those who are most vulnerable in the community.
But I’m afraid you article, like many other similar pieces written by frustrated or saddened clergymen, misses the larger point – the real “elephant in the room” – as to why young adults are leaving the church in greater and greater numbers. This point has nothing to do with whether a congregation is steeped in tradition or whether a church meets in a strip-mall roller-rink. In fact, no matter how progressive and inclusive a denomination’s theology, the pillar at the heart of the Christian faith is still that one must to believe that the Creator of the Universe decided to have a young, poor, virgin (of a royal blood-line) birth his demi-god son, who for three short years did some preaching and supernatural stuff, until he was put to death for ruffling feathers and disturbing the peace. Luckily his public lynching turned out to be a good thing because it apparently saved the human race from eternal punishment. That’s because one of our ancestors – thousands of years earlier – had in the heat of the moment, followed the advice of a talking snake – and this screwed it up for the rest of us.
The point is that many young adults in 2012 feel like continuing to endorse this mythology is intellectually dishonest. (I’ll bet Voltaire would be surprised that it has lasted this long). Of course the historical Jesus of Nazareth, the itinerant apocalyptic preacher – who was probably not born in Bethlehem, who probably never claimed any type of divinity, who was most likely married to Mary Magdalene – was a spiritual revolutionary, whose story shaped western civilization after all. But must we who just can’t swallow the whole Resurrection tale, be responsible to carry the ancient, heavy, stone Church on our backs just to honor our ancestors? It’s like trying to keep the US Postal Service afloat, just because it’s the model we’re used to.
Can we just take some of the Beatitudes and run with it? These ideas of love, and compassion, and peace; these ideas of giving of oneself to the service of others as a way to find meaning are the Gospel. But must we have to perpetuate dogma and myth to preserve spiritual principals? Must we need more than the recognition that somewhere inside all of us is a deep inner resource that is a constant and eternal identity apart from the hairy bags of water and skin that we call “ourselves.” That is what I choose to cultivate.
No more am I offended or saddened by what the tacky, gaudy, emotional, non-denominational evangelicals do on Sundays to attract the flock. No more must I try to explain that “all Christians are not like them.” So be it. I’ve let go.
Sincerely
Warren Black
buddhist
i weep for this poster
Hi Warren,
Thank you for bringing your voice. I am actually not frustrated. This post actually came out of seminars I did for the Urban Youth Worker’s Institute 3 years ago. At the time, the old guys sat there with their arms crossed and the young ones were jumping out of their seats cheering. I knew the young ones got it. It was very encouraging.
I do think that the Christian narrative is historical…and I swallow the Resurrection hook, line and sinker. It took me a long time to come to that place. I grew up with much pain and as a very convicted atheist. The church was not part of my life. To be sure, I like the idea of church more than its execution. There are too many people like me in the church. 🙂
Your ability to let people be where they are and not need to defend God/faith/organized religion sounds supremely healthy to me.
Hello Matt,
Thanks for the blog. I am still trying to absorb all the great thoughts here! I’ve been watching this debate lately and have found myself wondering about two things that don’t seem to be addressed. Maybe you can help:
1) What was going on before that was so successful – or not? You mention parents and grandparents attended church. Thomas Bergler mentions the 50’s when Youth For Christ started. What made church so successful back then? Was it the BCP and the hymns? We still have those, but we are still losing people. Or was it a false sense of success, since all the generations following are leaving.
2) Another hole people don’t seem to discuss, is not the lack of effective youth ministry, but the lack of effective church ministry. More precisely, what was the church doing to support these people in college? Why do you blame the youth ministry for events that occurred after that time is over? If I stopped having Bible studies for kids in middle school, and then picked up again in high school, would I be shocked that they had a the spiritual insights of a kid in grammar school?
The church doesn’t invest in students as college or young adults, and wait for them to wander back once they have babies, or want to get married. Then we are shocked that they haven’t spiritually matured since the last youth trip. Surprised that they may want to join a church that exudes some passion. Or, as you point out, they haven’t returned at all. Well …. who let them go?
Thanks for letting me question,
Oeland
Oeland camp weighing in! How cool to hear from you. Hope life is well for you, friend.
1. I am not sure that we were necessarily doing great spiritual formation “back in the day.” I am pretty sure that church meets a lot of social, psychological and sociological human needs. I think that in a vaguely Christian world, people were coming whether they believed much or not. It was the postwar boom – the equivalent of being able to roll out the basketballs and open the gym doors in the city and start a league.
I think we benefited greatly from that generation of leaders who had lived through WWII. They were convicted, passionate and had great clarity about building something. I think your church builders in TEC in SC have had lots of that same stuff. I also think that, without all of the bells and whistles, they were more relational. Christianity is caught as much as taught. That is one gift old-school youth ministry gave people. When we professionalized the church and gave the ministry to a select few, we undid valuing relationships for program. My suspicion is that due to that professionalization we didn’t pass on a viable, family-based faith. I think the stuff that Dave and Peter Rothermel are trying to do are really hopeful.
2. I do blame lots of what I and others did (and trained other youth ministers to do) on where we are today. You are familiar with Dave and Moser’s “What you win them with, you win them to.” If you follow the trail on that you end up not with slightly shallow youth, but with slightly shallow pastors. Think about where pastors got there training – in the trenches of how to gather a group through their YM experience. As they became senior pastors they took those skills into the larger church. The church boards watched the crowds come and became drunk on the numbers. So I think it is the failure of the entire church…caused by those who, unlike you who stayed where called, moved up “the food chain,” they took a lower the bar-attract the crowd mentality to the larger church. That will be the subject of a later post.
Good hearing from you, bro.
And I do think you are right, that we largely let them go in college.
When I was a teenager, I wanted my Missouri Synod Lutheran church to adopt contemporary worship styles. In retrospect (I’m 27 now), I wish that instead they had taught me about the value of our traditional liturgy and hymns.
Amazing how times change. 🙂
Reblogged this on Musings on a different life.
In the last Baptist church with which I was associated–some 40 years ago–“Children’s Church” was held during the adult worship hour. Of course, it featured the puppet ministry. They might call a bit fuzzy blog Verse Varmint, but all the kids knew he was really Cookie Monster.
As the organist, I wondered how that would affect Evangelical worship some 35 years hence.
Now we know the answer: Liturtainment.
Any wonder I became Orthodox?
Well, yes, why would young adults feel any particular need to keep going to church, when there’s a club or community center just like it that is closer?
When I was a lad, being in church was different from being anywhere else. It took me out of the world and into another mindset. The music was very different from then-popular music because it had another purpose. The pastor dressed in clothing you never saw elsewhere because he had a special job. We had specific ways of doing things together, which made us a group rather than a mob. I think we had just about everything we needed, aside from the personal drive we brought with us, to make people ask, “what have they got that I haven’t? and how can I get it too?”
That didn’t crush my individuality or stop me from asking questions. It made me grow in a direction nothing else was going.
Mark – you got it. There is no need for the Church to copy the world, because we. are. different! Sinful, but forgiven and set free from sin’s power! Human, but in-dwelt & empowered by the Holy Spirit! Church should look different from entertainment, because it is.
Reblogged this on Counsel of a Friend and commented:
This is an excellent article, and it is time well spent to read it!
Thanks, Clint. I appreciate the feedback.
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From an Episcopalian in Indy to one in AZ, THANKS !
“As Archbishop Temple said, “Church is the one organization that exists for the benefit of those not yet a part of it.” What much of the evangelical mega-church has done is push that principle to the extreme. We can sing music with modern instrumentation in places where that is contextually appropriate without lowering the sermon to a 20 minute self-help messages in which the Bible functions as a reference book.”
I am ex-Episcopal and current mega-church attender while going to a semi-conservative seminary late in life. My children split 50/50 as adults attending church. I find that my theology has been pushed all round and at this point only seminary seems likely to sort out the mess left to me. Unfortunately, that has been a fantasy as well as seminary only makes me more educated about the divisions rather than deciding the issues. I find myself now more or less reformed, but with a Episcopal/Lutheran opinion of church discipline.
The reason I quoted this comment of yours is that it speaks to the theology behind the current Episcopal ecclesiology and highlights why I left that church. The idea that Church exists for the benefit of those not yet a part of it is exactly opposite of your point about first century church that would ask non-believers to leave before communion. Sacraments are for the believers. The whole model of the Anglican service is a tuneup or refresher for believers. The Calvinist backdrop of the 39 Articles is plainly there to see in the progression of the rites.
Mission is clearly an issue, but is our worship the place for evangelism? Is, instead, worship the place to recharge believers for the job of evangelism outside of the sanctuary walls? I believe there is a huge problem in adult education in our churches. Adults would rather “enjoy fellowship” than really study and learn. Clearly, one does not need to be an expert on the differences between Calvinism and Arminianism to be a devout and faithful Christian. But shouldn’t we educated our adults as to what the church actual does teach? One of the stranger truths of mega-church congregations is the existence of the lip-service Reformed next to the ex-United Methodist clapping along to the music so loud that no one really knows what is being sung. How can to theologies so different be reconciled under one roof? They can when there is no education of the masses.
We are no longer equipped to evangelize as you say. The church is no longer for the believer. In fact, the believer is often left with the feeling of “now what?” after “making a decision” for Christ. Bringing this back to the kids, where is catechesis in our churches now? If we fail to teach our adults, it is because we failed before at teaching our kids. We have abdicated that responsibility to…. I’m not sure. The culture?
This post is the tip of the iceberg and I’m sure you are aware of that. I posted to point out some issues of consistency with your line of reasoning. I think all of us should do a visit to an Eastern Orthodox church to get a feel for the spiritual and the ancient and then come back and take a hard look at where we have gone.
Hello Troll,
Great response! I think an Orthodox service is a great field trip-but they must have someone explain what they will be participating in or they will just be confused.
For the earliest Christians every Apostolic Father I have read clearly describes worship as being for the believer but the body of Christ as existing for the benefit of the world. So I think I may have caused confusion by my terms. I was opening a window into the possibility that The Church (as the body of Christ) could exist for the world, even as the worship service exists for the church.
Thanks again!
Reblogged and interacted with this on http://shawn-thoughts.blogspot.com/
I really enjoyed the article. There has been a lot of things discussed through-out the comments, but one thing that I have always found puzzling is… why do most people attend worship services? Have we forgotten the real reason we assemble? Unfortunately, I believe most have. We assemble to worship, serve, please and praise God. It’s all about HIM! Not us. Smoke machines, guitars, pianos, lasers, and flashing lights? Why? Does this please God? Is it what he’s asked for? Or is it a ploy to bring more bodies in? Hey, I am all for trying to get more souls in the pews, but let’s do it in a way that doesn’t put make-up on God. We are forgetting what HE expects from us and setting such a bad example for the future generations.
Well said.
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My 23 year old daughter walked away from religion / church at the age of 17, she still maintains her belief / dedication to Christ. She simply stated “I can no longer tolerate the hypocrisy / judgmental attitudes of the people that gather there.” She now “worships” at a soup kitchen, using her nutrition degree to plan meals for the homeless, and making sure the kitchen is kept in a sanitary state. She told me she feels closer to Christ here than in a building with a cross on it.
Hard not to like her heart for service! Serving is what we were supposed to all be doing every day, both before and after worship. Both serving and worship are good. Hypocrites are everywhere: leaving the church doesn’t rid us of them. The reality of sin is that we all fall short. A community of servants who worship is the best of both worlds. 🙂
Just a bit of pushback on these points of “Whats so uncool about cool churches?”
1: Segregation. When I was a teen, I wanted a chance to be goofy and be myself, let down my guard. I could do that in a “segregation” of what was my youth group on Sunday evenings. I still went to church with my parents on Sunday mornings. We should not assume that whole congregational worship that includes students is left behind for favored mini-churches on Sunday mornings of segregationalized children’s room, youth rooms, etc. If it isn’t working in your church, change it. Segregation is important for stage of life learning. A fifth grader has different questions about God than does an eleventh grader. A twelfth grader has questions that can’t necessarily be answered in “big church”.
2: Big = effective. Actually, big = more youth learning about Christ. It’s a big assumption that these big youth groups are completely program driven and thus less personal. Big = it once was small, but the environment/teaching/structure lent itself to kids actually inviting their friends to church; therefore it grew. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, it may have grown BECAUSE it was so personal.
3. More programs attended = stronger disciples. More programs attended = more programs. Willow Creek’s Reveal study was an incredible read. But, the idea isn’t new. In fact, there’s a book called Simple Church by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger that speaks to doing fewer things better and being intentional about Spiritual growth steps in the programs that you DO do. I agree that we should be looking at how much we’re doing and cutting back to be more focused and intentional in helping people grow in their spiritual walks.
4. Christian replacementism. Agreed! We’ve been followers over the past couple generations, rather than leaders in our culture. The churches that risk much, impact the community much and actually change the culture around them.
5. Cultural “relevance” over transformation. Why not have a cafe in a church and make the church a place where people want to ‘Hang out’, rather than just get in and get out as fast as possible? Environment is key to Big-box churches…they recognize that if they can make a youth room feel like a starbucks mixed with a bit of pool hall, mixed with a bit of concert venue, kids will beg to come there multiple times a week and want to invite their friends, and want to engage in relationships there, and want to have philosophical discussions about God there, and want to do their homework there, and will want to use it as their home base to serve their community. Would that be said the same of a cold room with plastic chairs and a linoleum floor with no personality?
6. Professionalization. In the mega-churches I’ve been a member, that is the exact opposite of what is taught day in a day out. It is a mantra that the church is a place to equip lay people to be ministers in their family lives, with their friends, and with their co-workers, etc. The pastor’s job is to teach in a way that engages all people into furthering their relationship with Christ and to teach the congregation on what it means to share their faith with others.
7. McDonald’s-ization: Agreed…many church leaders seek what is easiest, rather than what is best for their congregations. We live in a time where we “borrow” from others, rather than take the time to understand and evaluate who we are and where God is calling us to go. It is ok to research what has worked in other congregations to connect people to others and how transformation has taken shape in their spiritual formation paths, but to copy and paste outright is wrong.
8. Attractional over missional. People are attracted to mission. So, if your church is all about mission and serving others, rather than being the best country club in town, most likely, the church will grow. A church that is attractional in the sense of having set designs, an incredible praise band, and light shows isn’t bad…that is a comfortable style of worship for many people. But, that style can’t be lumped in to being called attractional… Gothic architecture of grand Cathedrals is attractional; intented to create a sense of awe and reverence. Our church worship styles should all point to God and point the way to loving one another, as God has called us to do. To assume that a different worship style relegates God to the periphery is a dangerous generalization which contributes to the gap of traditional churches from their non-denominational sister churches in the Body of Christ.
I believe the bigger question here is “are we distracted from learning from one another in a digital age and from reaching the Sight and Sound Generation with the love of Christ?” How do we challenge how we programmatically create ministries designed to grow our congregations spiritually? When do we stop pointing fingers at Big churches as being out of touch or ineffective in connecting God with their communities and start learning from one another?
I think young people have been privy to the ugliness of politics in the church in the past generation and scandals in churches left and right; and this fact has led to the disillusionment of young people to organized religion. We see through the corruption of health and wealth pastors, we see through the political propaganda of Focus on the Family, and we see through the intolerance that many so-called Christians use to exclude others all in the name of Christ. I believe THIS is what has led to the absence of young adults in churches, not for the reasons listed in “what’s so uncool about cool churches?”
Hi Mikeo,
1. If you were in your church on Sunday you were NOT segregated! Age appropriate grouping is fine- just not when it occurs during the times adults are meeting-which is standard fare in my neck of the woods.
2. Maybe. As someone who once ran a ministry with 500 students a week, making big small is very tough to do.
3. Amen!
4. Amen again.
5. I would never argue for cold room. Dan Kimball did research with unchurched young adults. He took them to a variety of places. They preferred places that were ancient to places that were starbucksy.
6. You have been at some good ones then. I know churches that mandate the makeup people wear on stage and which words won’t be said because they are negative.
7. Amen again. I once was going around looking at different churches. Four of the eight churches I visited happened to be working their way through the book of Daniel. What are the chances that they “happened” to be doing that randomly…and the same year that a mega church was selling it.
8. Attractional would be defined as an emphasis on “come”. Missional on “go”. Is the Sunday service for the seeker? Then it is “come.” If it is on equipping the body to do evangelism and service in the world. Then it is “go.” That was all I was saying. I wasn’t really referring to architecture.
Good job seeing through the goofyness of organized humans (not just church). However, I still maintain that when young people are made integral members of the real church, as people there to give rather than take, they stay in church at a much higher rate…see my 2nd statistics.
Good thoughtful post. Thanks for weighing in.
Yep… It’s what I have seen. In fact, my daughter, who was VERY active in the Episcopal church… handbell choir for 11 years, Acolyte for 9 years (7 as an acolyte leader) volunteer in the pre-K program, cooking parish dinners and VBS volunteer, attended 2 years of confirmation classes. She chose to attend the Sunday morning service with her family instead of the evening “youth service”. By doing so she knew many people of many generations in the church. But, by doing so and not attending her THIRD year of confirmation at the Sunday Night youth service and program she was denied Confirmation by our Youth Minister.
Being that my daughter was not going to take “No” for an answer, she went right to the Bishop to get confirmed and he helped make it happen. What I can’t understand is why in this day of age where we are struggling to figure out how to keep kids connected to the church we are turning kids away. Now, fortunately my daughter looks at things from not the typical view. Her reaction to all of this has not been “screw the church”, excuse my language, but that she is now considering being a Youth Minister so that was has happened to her CAN NOT happen to any other child. You can just imagine how proud I am of her!!
But extremely disappointed that a church is willing to push kids away.
I would say that most of the kids and these families look at Confirmation as a “Graduation” per say. And many kids stop coming to church after they are Confirmed.
Good for her!
My 18 1/2 year old daughter is in college and making her own way. I am thrilled to see her continuing her Christian walk and amazed at her spiritual growth in these past few months. She has been raised in a Christian school and a very conservative church. She is so grounded in her faith and such an example to many adults, I cannot imagine her ever leaving the church, not even in her 20’s.
Thank you for your article, I will be reposting.
Way to go, mom, daughter, school and church. It took a village, but it is happening for her.
As the senior minister of a church in Singapore, I would like to seek your permission to use this article in our weekly bulletin. Thank yqu in advance
Please use it!
Great piece. I would also add that in my opinion that the natural consequence of bigger churches in terms of occupied space is the need to fill said spaces with bodies. Any body to be exact as long as it is a packed house. This has caused, in my opinion, an over emphasis on evangelism and a significant decline in discipleship which is at the heart of any faith journey. It’s a recruitment model that is numbers driven not people.
The Lord has replicated this model throughout the bible, from Moses to Joshua, Elijah to Elisha and this model has been abandoned for the aforementioned numbers, of which a natural consequence comes a subtle pressure to “attract” more people to your churches therein you begin to do things that replicate the culture more than it reflects the message of the gospel to be as you stated “relevant”.
It also feeds into the consumer culture of indulgence as you spoke off that has an insatiable appetite that needs to be constantly stimulated and fed. There has been some amazing evangelism taking place within the body but the disconnect is that we have failed these young people by not discipling them. Authentic, transparent, person to person discipleship has been replaced by “leadership classes” and “themes” and not the often messy, face to face process of “long suffering” that Paul says is a gift of the spirit in Galatians.
In fact, I would argue that is one of the churches biggest failures. The church, which is supposed to be the place of loving acceptance, transparency and grace has become a zoo of superficiality predicated by the material and personal success, inside and outside the church. It’s about the presentation and look of the church rather than the heart of the gospel message and people. It’s become all flash and no substance with nationalist rhetoric of the American dream intersecting with a jesus whose soul desire is to prosper you: materially, professionally and financially and as long as you do the right things you won’t ever have any problems.
A god who wants to give you hope and a future – of your choosing. When that is the god that is being packaged and sold what incentive does one have to stay in the church when it looks no different than the culture at large? When that is the god that is being packaged and sold then we have entered the realm of the “religious”.
I think what Bishop John-Shelby Spong said in an interview with Religion Dispatches encapsulates my points and rests at the heart of what the church is experiencing in regard to youth and organisationally as a whole. “I’m encouraged that the Bible says to me over and over again that the Christian movement is always going to be a minority movement. It’s not ever going to be a majority movement. We’re going to be the little bit of salt that gives flavor to the soup, the leaven that causes the bread to rise, or the tiny candle that shines in the midst of incredible darkness. When we get back to understanding our role is to leaven the lump then I think we’ll be effective. Right now we believe we should be the majority. I don’t think that’s ever been the biblical image. The saving remnant was the powerful idea in the Hebrew Scriptures and I think that continues in the Christian tradition. But, we’ve gotten triumphal. We turned Christianity into Christendom and we rule the world. We’ve seated kings and unseated kings. We got drunk with that kind of power and we forgot how to be a Christian. I hope we can recover that and I hope my book will help people see that—because I think the message of the Bible is a pretty powerful one”
I have other thoughts but I don’t feel this is the forum for it and I also have not sifted through them enough to be able to transcribe them accurately but again, great piece and it is definitely food for thought.
Joseph, my friend, thank you for your thoughtful post. You not only make good points but you find a way to quote people who usually don’t make good points in order to make your good point. I miss you, friend! Sorry that my phone ran out of batteries or we could have facetimed.
I am 19, and i have been going to church ever since i was a child. Despite that, my sister left church years ago, and i have dropped out of youth services from different churches several times because i hated the music and the way of worship. I felt so uncomfortable when the ‘hymns’ we sing sounded like pop songs! & the worship looked liked we are in a dance floor instead of a Holy place. I miss the ‘old’ hymns, and i hate how many churches (i’m from Asia) encourages youth to speak Tongue, because they think its cool. I think that’s unnecessary. That’s why i attend the adult worship.
Lorene, Thank you for sharing your faith journey with us. I find it interesting that tongues is seen as appropriate for students but not for the adults.
A good church cannot be determined by it’s “style” of worship. What is important? Shouldn’t a church be judged by things like it’s theology, it’s teaching, it’s mission, the fellowship and growth of it’s people, whether people come to God and become closer to God?
Unfortunately, this article and it’s “Headline” remind me way too much of political campaign ads. Why do I say that? The use of the statistics that apply to ALL churches and our culture in a way that implies that these statistics are caused by “cool churches” rather than by all churches is deceptive. It also fails to deal with, or understand, why the statistics are as they are, and which churches succeed or fail in a number of different critical areas. This article is full of true, thoughtful iinsight, as well as personal opinions, bias, broad generalizations, and conclusions and/or implied conclusions that at best, paint a negative picture of a broad range of churches that range from really good to really, really bad.
Are we trying to say that a “traditional church” is good because it looks and sounds like a “traditional church”? If so, is it possible that, that might be the kind of attitude that is driving young people away from the church?
Surely you are right about style not determining whether a church is “good” or “bad”! I didn’t actually lump churches into those categories-and would not. I merely tried to describe what is happening with 20 somethings and why I think it is happening. The statistics (and I only quoted a few for the article that were of evangelicals. These are well-corroborated. See for example “You Lost Me, by David Kinnamon). It does have broad generalizations…it is a blog post and was already 2x longer than a blog post is supposed to be. This came from a 3 hr seminar I was doing for Urban Youth Workers Institute several years ago. In that format I had 3 hours to lay out my case. It is pretty hard to same something complex in 1400 words.
reblogged @ shawn-thoughts.blogspot.com
Also added some of my own musings.
thanks!
So, it’s all the youth pastor’s fault that kids don’t come back? What about parents who don’t live it out in front of their children, you MOM and you DAD are your kids ultimate pastors, what did you get from church that you live out in front them? How about we stop blaming pastors and youth pastors and take some responsibility for your lack of parenting. You want your kids to stay in church, show them authenticity and live it out!
Hi Moma,
I am a Christian parent and a 30 year youth ministry veteran who is the pastor of the church plant we attend. As such I would Amen your post. Responsibility for faith transmission always starts in the home. But what happens when churches do things that make it harder for the family to engage their children in the larger body of Christ? I would suggest Wright’s book: Rethink. Full of helpful things youth ministry could do to equip and serve parents. Fuller Seminary’s Sticky Faith has good parent resources, as does First-Third, a Lutheran resource. Responsibility lies where it does. When I do things that make it difficult for my teenagers as a parent it is on me. When I things that make it difficult for my kids as the person supervising the youth ministry it is on me. When I do things that make it hard for students as the pastor it is on me. Decisions have outcomes. Am I making decisions that help form people into the image of Christ? My motives are not only issue that determines outcomes.
Hi, I’m a twenty years old, I’ve been in the church my whole life, and I couldn’t agree more with your troubling but truthful analysis. All through elementary school and I high school I attended the same Episcopal church, and while I love the place still, during my high school days I had a real problem with the youth group. Honestly, I didn’t really feel like I needed it; after all, in eighth grade I had been confirmed, wasn’t I now a full member of the church? Why must I shunted off during services to the youth room, or to the local multiplex on Thursday nights, or to inane pool parties followed by cookie cutter theological “discussion.” I had a real problem with this, and as high school wore on, I went to church less and less often.
I spent my freshman year of college in western Massachusetts, in a town with a lovely old Episcopal church right next to campus, but with a student body too small and secular to support an Episcopal campus ministry. Sure, there was a large inter-denominational group, and I tried to fit into the community, but the contemporary worship style of their prayer meetings and the sheer number of e-mail reminders I would get, about events virtually every single day, were too much to bear. On Sundays I would go to the Episcopal church down the street, but they didn’t really have a place for me; the congregation was composed of long time natives and faculty, and I soon became detached there as well. A vaguely Christian “interfaith” dinner group facilitated by the college chaplain centred me somewhat, but I felt deeply unfulfilled.
At no point in my short life, I should add, did I need Christ more. I was bitterly depressed that year, achieving my academic goals but failing miserably to fit in, and eventually disengaging completely from the idea that I would ever be happy at the college I was going to. I desperately needed a Christian community in which I could find fulfillment and purpose for what I was going through. Suffice it to say that I had many, many bones to pick with God that year.
I transferred after that awful year, and am immeasurably better off having done so, true to the words of Ezekiel 36:26. I attend a midsized school back home in Virginia, and I have become heavily involved with the Episcopal campus ministry there. What I love about it (and I don’t think I’m the only one my age who feels this way) is that the Episcopal liturgy we follow and the worship that we do–though it might seem hopelessly behind-the-times to baby boomer modernisers–is fulfilling and wonderful because it is transcendent in a way that contemporary worship and “market driven youth ministry” could never be. Church (indeed, Christianity itself) is *not* what you want it to be! A religion based on your own desires is neither fulfilling nor exciting because it cannot take you anywhere you haven’t already imagined.
I admit that our community is not perfect: we could do a better job of spreading our message to the wider campus community, perhaps, and we are not as well-integrated with the local regular parish as we should be. But those things are changing for the better. What our community has which is invaluable is a strong grounding in worship and liturgy, and the opportunity to participate in something truly spiritual, in a society where the truly spiritual has become rare, even in religious settings. I come from a generation (nursed on AIM and Myspace, now on Facebook and Pinterest) which has known nothing but stimulation and sensory assault. The answer is not to carry that assault into the sanctuary: of course we can relate to it, that’s why we know it’s not special or relevant to us.
We come to church to discover something greater than all that…
I love “we come for something greater,” “transcendent,” and “A religion based on your own desires is neither fulfilling nor exciting because it cannot take you anywhere you haven’t already imagined.” You are fabulously quotable! I hope for the same when I go to worship.
Jesus came in a humble way to show us the way to heaven. He showed us his part of his life and ministry, but equally important He showed us His DEATH, BURIAL and RESURRECTION – hope for all – not entertainment for all. Let’s go back to our roots of the first century and do things the way God instructed us. Jesus showed perfect humility in doing whatever the Father wanted; He gave the Father the credit, but look at us today.
Amen.
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