Where have all the youth group folks gone?

I grew up when Walther League was still the name recognition of LCMS youth.  It did not last long and soon more than the name was gone.  I am not writing a nostalgia piece here.  The last thing we need is someone telling us that we need to go back to the way it was done 40-50 years ago.  I realize that the world is different, that kids are different, that the challenges are different.  What concerns me is that all our energy in making youth group fun and exciting, all our efforts to incorporate music that sounds more like what our youth listen to on the radio (make that their Ipods), and all our money spent on rooms, recreation, and relevent stuff has not done much.

• 20-30 year olds attend church at 1/2 the rate of their parents and ¼ the rate of their grandparents.
• 61% of churched high school students graduate and never go back! (Time Magazine, 2009) 
• Even worse: 78%  to 88% of those in youth programs today will leave church, most to never return. (Lifeway, 2010)

Now, granted, these are not the statistics of LCMS youth but they probably are not that far off.  We have coddled them with entertainment, we have made over the church to reflect their supposed musical taste, and we have bought into the idea that youth ministry needs to be hip and fun... all for what?  Many of them are falling away like leaves off the tree in the Fall.  Are they coming back?  I don't know...  Marriage and children were once the great wake up calls to recall the distracted youth from their wanderlust but the postponement of marriage and the fewer children born to young people has left us with fewer built in alarms to the need for connection to the Church and the faith.  We could debate this until the cows come home -- the point I am trying to make is that those redesigned youth programs of the 1980s-today have not connected the youth to the Church nor have they catechized our youth to instill the value of belonging and being together around the Word and Table of the Lord each week.

If parents were counting on youth programs, they dropped the ball.  If the churches were depending upon youth programs, they have been left wanting. There is no replacement for strong family faith and values, reinforced by solid catechesis, and reflected in the regular and normative practice of Sunday worship.  Part of the reason each succeeding generation seems less attached is that their parents were less attached than their parents, and so on.  In addition, we went through a period in which we thought relationship building was more important that teaching the actual faith and our catechesis did not match up to our confession.  The point that I am trying to make is that competing for the endless choices in the marketplace of pleasure will always leave us a distant fourth or fifth to the more exciting options for entertainment, excitement, and fun.  Youth programs have got to stop trying to compete with the vast entertainment options already available to middle and high school age youth and need to start teaching and reinforcing the truth and values of the faith (not in the least of which is why weekly worship is so important for us).

Making church fun and having music you can dance to on Sunday morning is not going to capture or keep our kids.  Segregating our kids from adults and telling them to trust their feelings is not going to help them believe or remain faithful.  Parental teaching and example, dedicated catechesis, and good church going habits in the family are still our best hope to pass on the faith.  The people who think this is about style have it all wrong.  It was and it will always be about substance and about substantial commitment and example on the part of the adults in our kids' lives.

I just thought I would beat the drum on the familiar bandwagon again.... but if you are tired of it, you can move along to something else...