Why Are We Losing Our Young People?
by James P. Needham
via Sentry Magazine, Vol. 17 No. 1, 31 March 1991
I’m sure you are aware of the tragic loss to the church of many of our young people. It has reached alarming proportions. Have you ever wondered why? It is high time we investigate the reasons and work to eliminate them. Otherwise, the future of the church looks quite dim. I’m sure I don’t know all the reasons, but let me suggest a few:
Working Mothers
Today, the majority of mothers work outside the home. In the most critical years of their lives, many children are jerked out of bed at 6 AM, and carted off to the baby sitter by 7:30 and are unseen by anyone in the family until late afternoon, then mother has to do the housekeeping she didn’t have time to do before going to work this morning, make dinner, wash the dishes, give baths, do the laundry, and get herself ready for bed and for work the next morning. (During this time, the kids are either out getting "street smart" or watching violence and immorality on television, and, father, well, there’s no telling where he is or what he is doing!). Poor mother! By the time she finishes her evening chores, she is a nervous wreck.
Children raised in this kind of situation have little chance of forming a genuine bond with their own parents and a sense of home and family. They spend more time with strangers than with their own families. There is a "copout" expression going around that says, "It’s not the amount of time one spends with his family, but the quality of the time he spends with them that’s important." Horse feathers! Utter nonsense! This "baloney" has been hatched by the "pop" psychologists to salve the consciences of today’s fragmented and scattered families. All the time parents spend with their children is quality time, whether they realize it or not. Quality time is the only kind of time we have ever spent with our children. Whether we were on a trip, having a picnic, or all of us were home with each doing their own thing, there was still a sense of family and domestic security. Each was as close as a beckoning call. That’s a far cry from being separated by miles and miles with the children being attended to, or maybe even abused, by strangers.
Did you notice that I didn’t mention homework for school or church? I left them out deliberately, because there is little time in today’s parents’ schedules for that, and so we are graduating young people from high school who can’t read well enough to fill out a job application or look up a number in the phone book! (Did you know that the first thing many corporations do with such employees is hold classes for them to learn the basic skills they should have learned in school?)
Many of today’s young parents are struggling with a severe case of mixed values. I know very well that it is sometimes necessary for a mother to work, even when the children are small, but these are not the ones of whom I write here. I’m writing about young mothers who work because they don’t want to stay home and "raise kids." I am writing about those who work so they can have the extras; so they can keep up with the "Joneses"; so they can have a fancier car or a bigger house, wear better clothes, etc. I say that parents who send their small children to a day care center for these reasons are jeopardizing their own souls, as well as those of their children. I affirm without fear of successful contradiction that parenting is the most crucial function any person can perform in this world. Until we all realize this, our homes will never be what God would have them to be.
Neglect of Religious Training
And what about religious training? Where is the time for or interest in that? Well, it is minimal with many, if it exists at all. Elders struggle, and preachers offer their time and efforts to conduct development classes on any needed subjects, but these often fall flat due to a lack of interest. We often can’t get members to attend the regularly scheduled assemblies, much less extra ones. Let me put it in perspective with the following excerpt from a little article I read recently:
24 Years in the First Grade
"Statistics show that if public schools met only as often as Sunday Bible class at church, it would take 24 years to get through the first grade! Many people attend about half that time, thus a span of 48 years in the first grade would be spent." [Gary Fiscus].
If we are graduating people from high school who can’t read, what are we "graduating" from our Bible classes?
We often see young adults who have gone through our Bible class system, which consists of two class meetings per week, from kindergarten through 12th grade, whose knowledge of the Bible is minimal, and I mean minimal. (If we are graduating people from college who can’t read, remember, if they can’t read the telephone directory, the newspaper, or the job application, they can’t read the Bible either!) There are several reasons for this biblical illiteracy. Often, parents don’t prepare their lessons, so obviously, the children don’t do theirs. Parents would look foolish insisting that their children prepare their Bible lessons when they never look at their own! Parents often neglect to attend Bible classes, so if parents don’t attend, children tend to follow suit. Some who attend arrive when the class is half finished. Therefore, children develop the idea that Bible study is not particularly important. Also, in many churches, there is a woeful lack of qualified teachers. Teachers often are conscripted to do a job for which they are ill-prepared, but are willing, God bless them, to do the best they can. In this case, the church must bear some of the responsibility for not providing training for teachers. However, it matters not how often or how readily such instruction is offered; it does little good if teachers and prospective teachers don’t attend and apply themselves.
Constant Criticism of the Church and Its People
Often, people who show the least interest in the local church are the most intolerant and critical of its work and people. Children often go home from church to a diet of "fried" preacher, "grilled" elders, "dissected" deacons, and "barbecued" brethren. We may kid ourselves that the children are not listening. Don’t be foolish! Kids are like sponges, and they absorb a little here and a little there, and these "tid bits" accumulate and crystalize and clone in our children our attitudes toward the things we talk about in the home: the Bible, the church, the elders, the preachers, the government, the school, etc. Is it not passing strange that we parents often wonder where our children got their attitudes? Why don’t they respect the authority figures at school and church? Why aren’t they interested in listening to the preacher? Why do they speak disrespectfully of the elders? Why do they disrespectfully call the preacher and other adults by their first name, and sometimes, by their last name? Why do they dislike preachers and consider them necessary evils?
A little girl I once knew in a local church (maybe 6 or 7 years old) constantly misbehaved in Bible class. When the teacher tried to straighten her out, the little girl said, "You leave me alone, my mamma hates you." You see, parents’ attitudes toward the church and its people can influence how children behave in Bible classes, worship, and other settings.
A preacher was holding a meeting. A little boy ran up to him and said, "Preacher, you’re going to eat at my house tomorrow." The preacher, trying to have a little fun, replied, "Wonderful! And what are we having?" To which the little boy replied, "buzzard!" "Buzzard?" the preacher asked. "How do you know?" The little boy replied, "Well, I heard mother say to daddy last night, 'We’d might as well have that old buzzard tomorrow and get it over with.’"
I once knew a little girl who now has a grown family, who overheard a conversation at home about some of the church members. One day, out of a clear-blue sky, she walked up to the preacher’s wife and said, "My daddy doesn’t think you’re a bit pretty!"
A preacher friend of mine was having dinner at the home of another preacher. A third preacher’s name came into the conversation at the dinner table. The host preacher’s little boy (6 or 7 years old) suddenly asked his father, "Daddy, is that the preacher that tells all those big old lies?" His father replied, "Yes, son, eat your dinner."
We are all fooling ourselves if we think our children are not picking up on and absorbing our attitudes, as manifested in what we discuss in their presence. I certainly don’t think parents are always responsible for their children’s attitudes, but it is a settled fact that parents make certain and definite contributions thereto. If that contribution is strong enough and persistent enough that it leads our children to forsake the Lord, despise His church and people, and, eventually, are lost, then we need to remember God’s words to Judah through Jeremiah, "I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings" (Jeremiah 17:10). We’re not only responsible for our "doings," but also for what our "doings" produce in others.
So, the bottom line is that if we want to find the trap door through which we are losing our young people to the world, we need to look first at their home life and secondly at the local church's program. It is a proclivity of human nature to overlook the obvious. This is what we often do in this matter. It is much easier to look for the reason for our problems in somebody else’s closet rather than our own.
Young parents often kid themselves that their children’s lack of interest in church work springs from the shortcomings of the elders, the preacher, the Bible class teachers, the members, their parents, etc., and all these may have made a contribution thereunto, but the real problem is in themselves; in their marital, family and spiritual relationships. "Every man shall bear his own burden" (Galatians 6:5). Until we face up to our responsibilities and understand that we can’t blame somebody else for our lack of interest, we’ll never solve our problem.
Our Entertainment-Crazed Society
We lose many young people because they are hooked on our entertainment-crazed society. Many adults are also addicted to this craze. This explains why the preacher who possesses the most showmanship, a catchy gimmick, and can tell the funniest jokes in the pulpit, etc., is the one in most demand by churches. Nearly everyone wants to be entertained, even in church! It is so difficult to find people who are genuinely committed to life, their responsibilities, and their destiny. It is most difficult for young people who have been raised in front of a television set to get interested in simple, plain gospel preaching or any other activity that requires mental concentration. They find a gospel sermon about Christ and Him crucified boring unless it incorporates some gimmick.
For this reason, denominations and many of our own brethren address the problem by hosting youth rallies and programs that focus on the trivial and mundane. This explains why denominational church buildings and those of our liberal brethren are often running over. People are accustomed to being entertained, and the church that is willing to furnish recreation attracts those who are addicted to it. "Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together״ (Matthew 24:28).
The conservative churches are very vulnerable here. They refuse to build kitchens, fellowship halls, gymnasiums, and other facilities to stop the exodus of many young people and some older ones. Until parents and churches do a better job of teaching young people the scriptural reasons why we cannot do these things, we will continue to have this problem. Let’s not kid ourselves, many among us would find no objection to our doing this; the social gospel is not far from the doorsteps of many conservative churches. Many preachers are asked upon prospecting for a church, ״What kind of program do you have for the young people.״ Most of us have been asked this from time to time. Brethren are often offended when we ask, ״Are you looking for a preacher or a youth minister?״ I have often answered the question by saying, ״I have the same program for the young people that I have for the old people: Bible study." Some of this pressure to create a special class for young people stems from parental failure at home. Many parents have relinquished much of their parenting to others as their children grew up, and now that they are teenagers, they want the church to take over.
We must keep the mission of the kingdom of God firmly in mind. "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men" (Romans 14:17-18). "And if any man hunger, let him eat at home; that ye come not together unto condemnation..." (I Corinthians 11:34). We do our young people no favors by trivializing the mission of the church with entertainment to keep them coming to our church buildings. If the gospel doesn’t bring them to our buildings, it won’t keep them there. It is foolish to think we can lure people into the church with hamburgers and soda pop, then keep them there with the gospel. Sooner or later, we will have to reap what we have sown in such a case. The result of such trivializing of the work of the church is seen in the second and third generations of our liberal brethren. Their harvest is the social gospel, purely and simply; church-supported secular schools, gymnasiums, youth rallies, hospitals, family counseling centers, general benevolence, etc.
In many cases, these brethren have no understanding of the church's scriptural mission. Often, they have no idea what the church is all about. They really think it is "meat and drink." Many of the liberal churches don’t preach enough gospel to "wad a shotgun."
Conclusion
It is "old hat" to say that our young people are our most valuable resource, and that they are "the church of tomorrow," but the truth is so profound that it needs to be repeated over and over again. We do our young people no favors by trivializing the church's mission to keep them interested. The only thing that will save the church is the saving gospel. Nothing else will even come close to doing it. Trying to save the church with the social gospel is like trying to cure a cancer with an aspirin. Or, it's like throwing tacks in your driveway, and wondering why you keep having flat tires. We need to put mothers back in the business of mothering, fathers back in the business of bringing up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4), and churches back in the business of preaching the pure gospel of Jesus Christ. Only then will we stop our young people from falling through the cracks.
