“What do we do
about our kids?” The group of parents sat together in my office, wiping
their eyes. I’m a high school pastor, but for once, they weren’t talking
about 16-year-olds drinking and partying. Each had a story to tell
about a “good Christian” child, raised in their home and in our church,
who had walked away from the faith during the college years. These
children had come through our church’s youth program, gone on short-term
mission trips, and served in several different ministries during their
teenage years. Now they didn’t want anything to do with it anymore. And,
somehow, these mothers’ ideas for our church to send college students
“care packages” during their freshman year to help them feel connected
to the church didn’t strike me as a solution with quite enough depth.
The daunting statistics about church-going youth keep rolling in. Panic ensues. What are we doing wrong in our churches? In our youth ministries?
It’s hard to sort through the various reports
and find the real story. And there is no one easy solution for bringing
all of those “lost” kids back into the church, other than continuing to
pray for them and speaking the gospel into their lives. However, we can
all look at the 20-somethings in our churches who are engaged and involved in ministry. What is it that sets apart the kids who stay in
the church? Here are just a few observations I have made about such
kids, with a few applications for those of us serving in youth ministry.
1. They are converted.
The Apostle Paul, interestingly enough,
doesn’t use phrases like “nominal Christian” or “pretty good kid.” The
Bible doesn’t seem to mess around with platitudes like: “Yeah, it’s a
shame he did that, but he’s got a good heart.” When we listen to the
witness of Scripture, particularly on the topic of conversion, we find
that there is very little wiggle room. Listen to these words:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has
passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Cor. 5:17)
We youth pastors need to get back to understanding salvation as what it
really is: a miracle that comes from the glorious power of God through
the working of the Holy Spirit.
We need to stop talking about “good kids.” We
need to stop being pleased with attendance at youth group and fun
retreats. We need to start getting on our knees and praying that the
Holy Spirit will do miraculous saving work in the hearts of our students
as the Word of God speaks to them. In short, we need to get back to a
focus on conversion. How many of us are preaching to “unconverted
evangelicals”? Youth pastors, we need to preach, teach, and talk—all the
while praying fervently for the miraculous work of regeneration to
occur in the hearts and souls of our students by the power of the Holy
Spirit! When that happens—when the “old goes” and the “new comes”—it
will not be iffy. We will not be dealing with a group of “nominal
Christians.” We will be ready to teach, disciple, and equip a generation
of future church leaders—“new creations”!—who are hungry to know and
speak God’s Word. It is converted students who go on to love Jesus and
serve the church.
2. They have been equipped, not entertained.
Recently, we had “man day” with some of the
guys in our youth group. We began with an hour of basketball at the
local park, moved to an intense game of 16” (“Chicago Style”) softball,
and finished the afternoon by gorging ourselves on meaty pizzas and
2-liters of soda. I am not against fun (or gross, depending on your
opinion of the afternoon I just described) things in youth ministry. But
youth pastors especially need to keep repeating the words of Ephesians
4:11-12 to themselves: “[Christ] gave…the teachers to equip the saints
for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ.”
Christ gives us—teachers—to the church, not for entertainment,
encouragement, examples, or even friendship primarily. He gives us to
the church to “equip” the saints to do gospel ministry in order that the
church of Christ may be built up.
If I have not equipped the students in my
ministry to share the gospel, disciple a younger believer, and lead a
Bible study, then I have not fulfilled my calling to them, no matter how
good my sermons have been. We pray for conversion; that is all we can
do, for it is entirely a gracious gift of God. But after conversion, it
is our Christ-given duty to help fan into flame a faith that serves,
leads, teaches, and grows. If our students leave high school without
Bible-reading habits, Bible-study skills, and strong examples of
discipleship and prayer, we have lost them. We have entertained, not
equipped them…and it may indeed be time to panic!
Forget your youth programs for a second. Are
we sending out from our ministries the kind of students who will show up
to college in a different state, join a church, and begin doing the
work of gospel ministry there without ever being asked? Are we equipping
them to that end, or are we merely giving them a good time while
they’re with us? We don’t need youth group junkies; we need to be
growing churchmen and churchwomen who are equipped to teach, lead, and
serve. Put your youth ministry strategies aside as you look at that
16-year-old young man and ask: “How can I spend four years with this
kid, helping him become the best church deacon and sixth-grade Sunday
school class teacher he can be, ten years down the road?”
3. Their parents preached the gospel to them.
As a youth pastor, I can’t do all this. All
this equipping that I’m talking about is utterly beyond my limited
capabilities. It is impossible for me to bring conversion, of course,
but it is also impossible for me to have an equipping ministry that
sends out vibrant churchmen and churchwomen if my ministry is not being
reinforced tenfold in the students’ homes. The common thread that binds
together almost every ministry-minded 20-something that I know is
abundantly clear: a home where the gospel was not peripheral but
absolutely central. The 20-somethings who are serving, leading, and
driving the ministries at our church were kids whose parents made them
go to church. They are kids whose parents punished them and held them
accountable when they were rebellious. They are kids whose parents read
the Bible around the dinner table every night. And they are kids whose
parents were tough but who ultimately operated from a framework of grace
that held up the cross of Jesus as the basis for peace with God and
forgiveness toward one another.
This is not a formula! Kids from wonderful
gospel-centered homes leave the church; people from messed-up family
backgrounds find eternal life in Jesus and have beautiful marriages and
families. But it’s also not a crapshoot. In general, children who are
led in their faith during their growing-up years by parents who love
Jesus vibrantly, serve their church actively, and saturate their home
with the gospel completely, grow up to love Jesus and the church. The
words of Proverbs 22:6 do not constitute a formula that is true 100
percent of the time, but they do provide us with a principle that comes
from the gracious plan of God, the God who delights to see his gracious
Word passed from generation to generation: “Train up a child in the way
he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Youth pastors, pray with all your might for
true conversion; that is God’s work. Equip the saints for the work of
the ministry; that is your work. Parents, preach the gospel and live the
gospel for your children; our work depends on you.