5 Reasons Teens Are Avoiding Church

A pastor friend of mine shared this link this morning on Twitter. It's been posted by both Roni and myself. It's got some good stuff in it and I wanted to share it here as well.

5 Reasons Teens Are Avoiding Church

Here are a few of my thoughts on this:

1) The point that no one is ever too busy for church is right on. That is the classic excuse of people in my age group; those with young children. We hear about how they just don't have time with everything else they have going on, often placing the blame on the activities they have placed their children in. As the author says, time doesn't discriminate, we all get the same 24 hour span. It's about how we use and prioritize those hours.

2) It is easy to get caught up in trying to create the next "big event" or "draw". There have been times in my ministry where parents will look at what other churches are doing and then relay that to me with the "subtle" hint that maybe we should be doing that as well. I hope that I have tried more often to give substance over flash.

3) Teens don't make church a priority because their parents don't make it a priority is something that we have seen for years. I'm so glad it was addressed here. When the parents don't make it a habit or a lifestyle to be in worship and active in the church body, the kids aren't either. After all, there isn't going to be any kind of blow back from the parents. Too often parents don't want to offend their kids when it comes to "making them" go to church. The same can't be said for practices, school or even interaction with friends.

4) It's true that kids don't need the church to connect with their peers anymore really. They spend time in school and practices with them almost every day. They are connected to them through Facebook, myspace, Twitter and texting. But my issue with this one is that these methods still allow kids to maintain distance from each other and don't necessarily lead to that kind of deep social interaction that we need. As the church one of our goals should be in striving to create that kind of interaction within community.

5) Until we as leaders are able to really model that change the kids will rarely model true change. We need to give them that example of how following Jesus and living out his example is world changing.

6) Great point about being real as opposed to trying to be "cool". Cool comes and goes, and if we are chasing that then we will never find rest. When we know who we are and what we are called to and allow ourselves to be real around these kids, that is where the difference is made. This is something that can take years to learn. It is that realness that will speak to the youth today (and in the future) more than our attempts to be like them. To take from a friend of mine, if the kids want a cool youth minister, they are the ones that make them cool.

That's it. I thought it was a great article and had some good points in it.

Grace, Peace and Love y'all.