Why Teens Are Leaving The Church # 2

A few weeks back I sent you an article about why teens are leaving the church when they graduate high school. Here is a link to that article. Also here is a link to last week’s thoughts.

I’ve asked Melissa Bock, who is on staff with our ministry to address one of the issues. Here are some of her thoughts:

Reason # 7 – We’ve sent them out unarmed:

“Let’s just be honest, most of our churches are sending youth into the world embarrassingly ignorant of our faith. How could we not? We’ve jettisoned catechesis, sold them on “deeds not creeds” and encouraged them to start the quest to find “God’s plan for their life”. Yes, I know your church has a “What we believe” page, but is that actually being taught and reinforced from the pulpit? I’ve met evangelical church leaders (“Pastors”) who didn’t know the difference between justification and sanctification. I’ve met megachurch board members who didn’t understand the atonement. When we chose leaders based upon their ability to draw and lead rather than to accurately teach the faith? Well, we don’t teach the faith. Surprised? And instead of the orthodox, historic faith…”

I identified most with them being sent out unarmed. This was partly my experience when I left home and headed off to college mostly because I was new to the faith. Thankfully, I wasn’t completely uninformed and unarmed. A lady in my church blessed me by walking with me through some of the basics before I left. By God’s grace I did not walk away, nor was I led astray by the many other options and possibilities I was confronted with, although I did question. In my time working with youth, I have found this to be true with them also, not only when they leave home, but also as they are growing up in the church. We teach them a lot about our faith, but seem to fail at teaching them what we believe and why we believe it.  We also don’t seem to give them much room to question and seek out the answers for themselves.

I believe one of the first things we can do to help them is to walk through the basics of our faith with them, starting with the Bible. We need to teach them that the Bible is not some book that was written thousands of years ago that has no meaning for us today, but instead it is inspired by God, is living and active, and is the basis for what we believe. It is God’s continuous and consistent message of redemption and salvation for man from beginning to end. The message is always the same. I believe we should ask them what they believe and why they believe it. They should have room to question, wrestle through the answers themselves, and come to conclusions. They should be able to explain why they think that and support their answers with Truth. I’m not saying to leave them completely on their own to come up with whatever they want. Instead of just giving them answers, we need to walk alongside of them and help them formulate answers for themselves. Not only should we allow them this space, but they should see us doing this in our lives as well.  Invite them into the process or explain to them how you went through to discover why you believe what you believe.

Though there are many ways to help our students be informed and armed, I want to equip them to find answers for themselves. Teaching them how to use concordances, commentaries, and the many other available resources there are out there. Teach them how to do word studies, study a passage of Scripture, and to pull the applications out. Teach them how to take what they hear from a sermon, or read in a book and see if it lines up with the whole counsel of Scripture. Lastly, teach them it is ok to not always have an answer and it is ok to ask for help. None of us have all the answers.