This is the introduction to my sermon (Godly families, Eph. 6:1-4) from yesterday’s service and is going to start a short series on folks who leave church, either by leaving church altogether, or by leaving the church where they were and searching for something different.
From Lifeway Research via Joe Ball, Youth Ministry guru for the Kentucky Baptist Convention, and a personal friend:
Of the teens who are active members of churches during High School, but walk away after they graduate…
80% are from families who are NOMINAL Christians. They attend church, but that is about it. They are not living lives of personal depth.
50% are from unchurched homes. This means the teen attends Youth Group and church, but the rest of the family does not.
20% are from churched families whose members are pursuing individual and personal relationships with God.
From this we can glean at least three things.
1) No matter what you do, some children will pursue God and some will not. There are no guarantees in parenting.
2) You are more likely to have a strong Christian child (assuming they are already attending church) if you are not a Christian than if you are a nominal Christian. When we take our personal relationship with God lightly, we send the message to our children that personal faith is of little value – and they believe us. We end up inoculating them – giving them a weak form of the Gospel so that they become resistant to the real thing.
3) The best thing you can do for the spiritual well being of your children is to work hard at being a strong Christian yourself.
Reggie McNeal tells us that Christianity is the fastest growing faith in the world, but not in America. In America, the church is in decline. Our own ACP numbers, as poor a tool as they are for statistical evaluation* bear this out, with our churches declining in membership and in baptisms, despite the erstwhile cheerleading of past SBC President, Bobby Welch over the last two years.
Could it be that the most simple solution for what ails us is for each of us to take our personal devotion more seriously, that those around us, particularly our children, will find real value in what we say is of supreme value: God?
______________________
* – ACP inquiries change questions year to year and place to place, they count people as members who aren’t in the church and whom most churches couldn’t find if they had to, etc.)
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Kevin Bussey
on Apr 23rd, 2007
@ 3:29 pm:
We must tell people about Jesus. But more importantly we must live it. If we preach it but don’t live it our message won’t be heard.
Cyle Clayton
on Apr 23rd, 2007
@ 4:01 pm:
Go, Art! These stats are really encouraging to me. Thank God for someone breaking them down so that they make sense. The mass exodus of youth from church may not be culturlal, but rather the spiritual reaction to lukewarmness. God does say it makes Him sick. Why shouldn’t it make others sick. A few years ago, Beth Moore talked about sending kids to “Christian” colleges. She said something along these lines. If you’re going to send your kids to a “Christian” college, you better make sure it’s a college with a big view of God. If not, your kids will leave college with a small god. We continually focus on training children up in the way they should go, but it sounds like the trainers need to be trained.
Clif Cummings
on Apr 23rd, 2007
@ 5:16 pm:
Art,
In my younger days I was a Student Minister. These statistics profoundly prove what has always been true. They should serve as a challenge to all student ministers to see that reaching students isn’t enough! You have to patner with the church in reaching and discipling the whole family!
Thanks for the breakdown and practical insights!
We just finished the Reggie McNeal DVD series on The Present Future! I cannot recommend it too highly!
P.S. Are you going to be in Arlington, TX. Friday & Saturday?
Art Rogers
on Apr 24th, 2007
@ 7:57 am:
I agree with all of these comments.
Cliff,
Would you believe that I am a speaker? See you there?
Art
volfan007
on Apr 24th, 2007
@ 9:22 am:
art,
i think that you hit the nail on the head on this. and, is this not true about us reaching anyone for the Lord Jesus out there? that we live out our faith…in all our weaknesses……that we live for the Lord and be real? that people see us having a real and vital walk with the Lord?
i think sometimes that we can have all the witnessing training classes in the world, and yet, the best way to truly reach people is by christians out there talking about Jesus….loving people….helping people…..being involved in the community to shine the light of Jesus on folks…and letting the lost crowd out there see a difference in our lives, and hear why we are different.
david
Randy
on Apr 24th, 2007
@ 11:40 am:
This is a major problem in SBC churches that is ignored by the majority of the leadership in the Convention. Excellent post!
Randy
Joseph M. Smith
on Apr 24th, 2007
@ 7:37 pm:
One of the things that struck me during the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech was the value and the presence of campus ministry among the students. News stories in the secular press mentioned the fact that pastors and campus ministers were out among the students, holding counseling sessions, offering vigils and quiet spaces, etc. I was particularly pleased to note that one of my old students from my campus ministry days (in the Late Middle Ages) was now doing ministry there.
But, sad to say, ministry in higher education has always had to fight for its right to exist, because seldom can it ever produce the numerical “successes” that denominational leaders like to see. There are many reasons for that inability to produce large numbers, but one of them is, in my experience, the fact that young adults are running from the church in all its forms when they go to college. They may have experienced hypocrisy or insincerity, and/or they may have recoiled against the anti-intellectualism attitudes they have heard from the pulpit. I am sure I did more work reclaiming young people for Christ than I did finding new converts.
Now what saddens me is that I am seeing retrenching, backing away from funding and placing campus ministers in several denominations, including even Southern Baptists. Here in the D. C. Baptist Convention, where I spent the years 1976-1986 building a network of ministry on the seven universities in DC alone, plus those in the Maryland suburbs, we are now doing almost nothing at all.
Joe Ball
on Apr 24th, 2007
@ 10:19 pm:
You are right in that this is ignored. We want to continue to believe that youth ministries with big budgets and the latest technology can fix our students. We need to, no have to, invest more time in parents, and families.
Matt Snowden
on Apr 25th, 2007
@ 3:42 pm:
Art,
Great thoughts. I appreciate this series of posts and think they will be very helpful to a good number of us. I think their is a good deal of hope here relating to kids and teenagers that attend our churches without their families. They seem to have a better shot at really getting it than kids of nominal members. This should cause us to look at kids we often tag as “drop offs” in a different way. Thanks again for your good words.
Kelly Reed
on Apr 25th, 2007
@ 9:42 pm:
Art,
How do those numbers work? 80-50-20 is more than 100%. How are they counting this?
Kelly
Art Rogers
on Apr 25th, 2007
@ 10:51 pm:
Kelly,
Of actively churched teens whose parents are nominal Christians, 80% bail and 20% stick.
Of actively churched teens whose parents are unchurched, 50% bail and 50% stick.
Of actively churched teens whose parents are growing Christians, 20% bail and 80% stick.
80-50-20 is not a total of teens, but of those bail in three different situations.
Cyle Clayton
on Apr 26th, 2007
@ 10:14 am:
I’ve contacted Joe Ball to find out how I can get the write up on his research. I would love to see the report, understand how he did the study, how he defined nominal and growing groups, etc. Can you tell me where I can find that on the web, or do you have it and can you sent it to me?
Joe Ball
on Apr 26th, 2007
@ 12:28 pm:
Research came from these places.
Lifeway student leaders conference lead by Pam Gibbs at Ridgecrest in Summer of 2005. (her contact is below)
Pam Gibbs, Discipleship Resources & Girls’ Ministry| pam.gibbs@lifeway.com |
It can also be found in
Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, by Smith and Denton
and to some degree in
Transforming Student Minsitry, Richard Ross General, editor
Hope this helps.