Keeping Our Youth In Church

In our society, so much emphasis is placed on being a celebrity. There are entire magazines, programs and web sites dedicated entirely to the "stars". Youth are drawn to their beauty and lifestyle, and if they cannot imitate them in dress and style, they feel ugly and worthless.

God never created anything worthless or insignificant. Some of God’s most bizarre creatures are birds. When pelicans are flying high in the heavens, they are a beauty to behold. But when you see them close-up walking around on the ground, you notice that they have a peculiar face, sporting legs and a big bag under their stiff upper lips. They strut around on outlandish legs looking like something out of a weird movie. It makes you wonder why God bothered to make a pelican.

Owls are creatures of the night. They have big round eyes and make a scary wooing sound. They can turn their heads and look backward without ever moving their body. Their feathers remind you of a toupee, but it never falls off.

Nobody pays much attention to sparrows. We know about eagles, hummingbirds and turkeys, but nobody cares much for sparrows. It’s just a little brown bird with nothing special going for it. It walks with a hop and eats continuously. Yet God attends every sparrow’s funeral (See Mathew 10:29).

Everything that God made has beauty, design and purpose. This is especially true of the things we consider irrelevant and useless.

Children in our society are kind of like sparrows; nobody notices them until they fall out of the sky. They are the largely invisible segment of the church congregation. Aside from being a nuisance, they are seldom discussed.

Great resources are poured into the older generation which is statistically the least likely to get converted. The average age of conversion in the United States is fifteen years old. Sixty seven percent of all people getting saved do so before they reach age eighteen. By age thirty-four, ninety percent of all who will be saved in this nation have already been saved.

A detailed survey of British churches showed that in the past ten years, the church has lost an average of three hundred young people each week. We must do something to keep our youth in the church. We must address them in our prayers and include them in our budget. We must have services with the focus on them, and create an atmosphere that will draw their interest. If we cannot keep them in the church, we may as well kiss them good-bye. Believe me, the world not only knows how to draw them, but how to keep them.

Sure God uses mature saints believers to guide, direct and shepherd young converts. But young people who spread the word among each other bring about the actual harvest. This is truer now than in any other generation. Youth communicate in our day more efficiently than ever. They can send messages to hundreds of people in seconds at the click of a button. We need that kind of communication working for the church.

Greg Johnson pointed out that you are only a teenager for seven years (13-19). If you survive, you may well be an adult ten times longer. Greg’s challenge to what he calls the "Youth Church" is this: "Give God the tithe of your teenage years and He will give you an open heaven for the rest of your life."