Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis commissioned America’s Research Group to investigate why young people leave the church. The findings are published in Ken Ham’s new book Already Gone. Some insights include:
Among 20- to 29-year-old evangelicals
- 95% attended church regularly during elementary school
- 95% attended church regularly during middle school
>> 40% first had doubts about the Bible in middle school - 55% attended church regularly during high school
>> 43.7% first had doubts about the Bible in high school - 11% attended church regularly during college
>> 10% first had doubts about the Bible in college
Oddly, the study discovered that those who attended Sunday school (61%) are actually more likely than non-attendees (39%):
- to not believe that all the accounts and stories in the Bible are true
- to doubt the Bible because it was written by men
- to defend keeping abortion legal
- to accept the legalization of gay marriage
- to believe in evolution
- to believe that good people don’t need to go to church
Clearly, most children’s ministries are failing at producing long-term disciples. So what will it take to change this?
On the one hand, I believe that every children’s ministry can absolutely improve what they do. There is always room for improvement, but I also think these failed children’s ministries are the byproduct of failed churches.
If you want to reach and disciple children, you must reach and disciple their parents. Church going kids spend only 1% of their time at church, 20% at school, 30% sleeping, and much of the rest watching TV and playing. Children’s ministers can determine the 1%, but it is the parents who have the power to decide what reaches their kids during the other 99%. If you disciple the parents, you disciple the kids.
For Discussion:
- How can children’s ministries better disciple kids in the Sunday school classroom?
- How can churches better train parents to disciple their kids during the rest of the week?
(via)
Why is “doubting” and “asking questions” an indicator that these children have been poorly discipled? It has been my experience that the complacent, “Easter/Christmas,” “Sunday Morning Only” Christians have very little need to question their faith because it isn’t active and alive. The greatest disciples ever known walked through times of incredible doubt, and were plagued with so many soul searching questions that many were tempted to give up completely, abandon the faith, take their own lives. Doubt is SUCH a crucial part of faith. I would HOPE that every person who calls themselves a believer will have (at some point in their lives) grappled with every single issue listed above (abortion, gay marriage, the authenticity of scripture, evolution, etc.) And the survey was conducted with 20-29 year olds, the very SEASON of life when most people are very unresolved on these issues. The Bible tells us to train up a child in the way he should go so that when he is old he will return to it. At 34-years old, I have “returned” to many of the basics I was taught as a child, but I didn’t necessarily embrace those things in my twenties.
@Jeremy
My statement about children’s ministries failing at creating long-term disciples is centered on the fact that their regular church attendance drops from 95% to 11% by college.
Doubting is certainly a natural thing to experience as a Christian. However, when doubt turns to disbelief, it is a problem.
You also have to consider that some churches figure that if Jonny the high schooler has always been a Christian and attended Sunday School as a kid, then he’s probably good to go in his later years and we need to focus on Susan who isn’t a believer. Jonny can feel left out and not have a place to turn when he struggles/questions/investigates his faith.
I’m confused as to whether you’re suggesting that the 61% who attended sunday school are worse than the 39% who didn’t because of what they are more likely to believe. Opinions on the specific issues mentioned aside, surely it is better that those who attended sunday school are able to question what is taught and are encouraged to reach their own conclusions as to what God is really saying. I feel it is great that sunday schools appear to be producing theologians rather than just followers. If anything I am always worried by the unrefuting acceptance of newer Christians to not look past what we evangelise, seek their own truth and make that personal connection with Christ.
But beyond this, I agree completely that the parents of children are the key – without their support (or, at the very least, their acceptance) those kids who feel drawn to God will never get the chance to explore it further. I would be really interested in any ministry that aims solely at the parents of church-going children and would love to hear suggestions that we could all employ at our churches.
Of course the church is still faced with the issue of how to stop the drop-off of kids as they get older. From personal experience, I’ve found that there are a few things that work. Firstly youth house/cell groups or bible studies that not only look deeper at Christian issues and ideas but also have a very large social aspect – after all we are called to fellowship not merely the exchanging of lectures. Secondly the youth must feel part of the wider congregation. If they are separated it becomes about them and their groups and not about the church as a whole. Young people need role models which should include older members of your congregation who can show them what the church has to offer them when they get older. Finally, although this may not be an issue for most churches – especially those with members or staff reading this – worship and services/meetings need to be relevant to them with new and innovative content and methods that really help make all people connect. The young people are the future of your church and as such need to be reached in the best possible way.
Sorry for the essay
.
@Kent – good point; I just think drawing conclusions from a survey of 20-29 year olds about the effectiveness of children’s ministry is a skewed sampling and flawed. I along with many of my peers went through numerous seasons of doubt and FULL-BLOWN disbelief during that time of life, but my faith is SO MUCH STRONGER now for having gone through it.
@Kyle – I’ve spoken to many ministers who are in agreement – WHAT DO WE DO WITH COLLEGE KIDS. I’m a college professor at a Christian school, and every semester I observe the vast majority of kids lives being turned upside down because they feel abandoned by the church and they have NO IDEA how to put into practice what the church has taught them thus far.
It seems most of the college students i meet with are just regurgitating facts they’ve been taught all of their lives. I don’t think we (not as a church only) but Western culture as a whole have completely lost the art of teaching our children how to PRACTICE the truths we teach.
I’ve had students tell me that when they got out into the “real world” they discovered that God’s ways “just don’t work.” Though I do not doubt their sincerity, I do believe they’ve never practiced applying “God’s ways.”
In ancient cultures, children were forced to endure the hardships of adulthood at very young ages, even face death. They emerged from these experiences emptied of self and able to better serve their community. Though extreme (and maybe even abusive) by todays standards, I think there’s a strand of truth to those ancient experiences… I sometimes wonder how we (and our children) can ever hope to experience the NECESSARY level of needed discipleship needed to become warriors of the faith in our plush Western culture, and in the cushiness of most modern churches.
Perhaps the problem is that it was never the Church’s responsibility to do what the parents should be doing all along. The Church universally should be equipping the parents to leave their legacy with the children; a legacy of serving Christ.
Too many parents use the church as daycare and do not take the role of spiritual mentor for them outside of Sunday morning.
Churchs have tried everything to engage the kids; except to do so by constantly holding the parents to a higher level of accountability.
Great information and thought provoking.
i’ve written before about how i’m part of a network of small house churches. what to do with the kids is perhaps the most asked and talked about question.
the answer is playing itself out quite nicely.
since the core house churchers have been doing this for 7-8 years, their kids grew up with church in their homes, and there was never a children’s entertainment ministry. just the kids playing among the adults in the house while they/we held church.
the thing is, the adults were having such a good time being in the Body of Jesus, that the kids apparently didn’t see “adult church” or “children’s church”… just one church.
so a couple of years ago a strange thing happened: when the kids became tweens, they approached one of the adults and said “we want what you have.” so now there is a thriving church made up of tweens and teens that are their own house church.
for my own story, i found sunday school and children’s church to be a huge stumbling block. the people of the bible became fictional characters – cartoons. it took a 2 week study course in israel in my 20s to realign my perceptions – to correct years of really bad teaching when i was a kid.
i say sell all the buildings, give the profits to the poor, single moms and orphans. put church back in homes, and let it grow by attraction – not promotion
Perhaps these statistics are perfectly typical of any aging human population brought up to believe a certain doctrine, especially one so full of the fantastic. Or maybe churches have done an absolutely horrid job of teaching the children and adults how to be families who are in their trust. This seems to happen because the faith life has been segmented away from the day to day, that we even have children’s church is worth examining. My guess is the answer for why these particular statistics are true is somewhere in the middle between typical and a faulty church model.
What can be done?
First of all, be willing to admit many of the Christian beliefs, when taken as merely doctrines taught in child and adult classrooms that do not bear out in the day to day life of the family, are hard to accept once you age a little and begin to experience all the pleasure and pain life has to offer.
Secondly, live your faith in your home with your children and encourage your friends to do the same, then the fairy tales they are taught when they are children are proven out.
And remember, if people are leaving maybe it is in search of something better.
I think it is important to not confuse doubting with questioning. I think to question is to draw conclusions and form a belief system once those questions are answered. The problem with doubting is that it means you haven’t made up your mind about what is right and what is best for you. And many times decisions made in late teen and early adult years have consequences for life.
I don’t think that selling building or starting more house churches is the answer. I think teen and children ministries should focus more on building a relationship with Christ. A ministry that focuses on the excitement of a walking relationship with HIm. Remember we are talking about a relationship with the one who knows all and does not change.
Having once been a Christian Education Minister / practitioner, I had long been concerned with practices that have in my view not reached the harvest stage.
This study seems to only scratch the surface of what many of these replies are wrestling with.
I witnessed in Sunday School and Children’s ministry the erection of a plug-n-play mentality among parents who felt that, like other cultural institutions were in charge of the academic instruction of their children, the church was in charge of the spiritual instruction. This was a flat disregard of God’s instruction, particularly the Hebrew Shema of Deut. 6:5-7. I routinely witnessed a failure of parents themselves to be discipled in a way that they would live out their faith in way that the power of Christ was lived out before their children. The valiant efforts of mature Sunday School teachers and Children’s ministry leaders fell flat to the ground against the 99% tidal wave of the culture. Kids came up empty. Colleges obliterated any remaining spiritual clarity.
If you follow voices like that of Dr. Chap Clark, you realize this has it’s historical roots in our culture and the church. There is hope in authentic relationship with Christ being lived out before our sons and daughters. Churches that build healthy ministry incorporating parents into the teaching environment and challenging their spiritual growth through intentional high expectation discipling is what is so desperately needed. Also, separating the generations for the sake of ease of ministry administration or comfort of adults is neither Biblical nor providing a bridge for young adults to be a part of the church today or tomorrow.
CORRECTION: “… in my view NOW reached the harvest stage.”
If every church would show films like Maafa21 and educate their people on the roots of abortion – we could see more Christians take a stand on that issue. Check out a short clips here: http://www.maafa21.com
My concern is that, what I think the most obvious questions are, haven’t been asked. From reading the Christian Post article, it is not clear what demographic of 20-29 year olds were surveyed, how many, what questions were asked and how they were asked… Also from reading the entire article that this is taken from, Ken Ham had a very specific agenda he was working towards: not having a strict Young Earth interpretation of origins leads to kids dropping out of church.
We have to be careful what conclusions we draw from surveys. If I were to take these stats at face value, assuming the survey was done as unbiased as possible, I wouldn’t say that churches were lax in teaching the Bible as fact or creating disciples, per se. I would look at it and say that churches failed in engaging the questions of those middle school and high school students and entering into dialogue with them to help them discover who God is rather than trying to force-feed a certain view of doctrine and beliefs, most of which are not crucial to an understanding of the need for redemption through what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross. We are not to be marked by what we know of the Bible but by our love for each other and our faith in Christ.
epic post :: great facts and engaging :: gets me thinking how we can implement new strategies to change a mind shattering statistic :: cheers Kent
I didn’t much like Sunday school myself and was made to go. Now my husband and I go to a Presbyterian church and our kids memorize their catechism during the week, and they actually seem to kinda love it. We pray with them every night and talk about God, and we don’t shame them when they say they don’t like church or something like that. They do seem to “get” the concept of God and what faith is (they’re 7 and 4) and I want to embrace the journey with them and help them know lots of stuff will unfold as they grow up and it’s okay.
Good thing to talk about here, thanks!
Eye-opening stats that add to the conversation … I’ve talked to many parents, wondering what went wrong along the way … they did all the right things, at home, at church … and their children opted out.
I think Jeremy’s post on 6-30 hits a major nerve. Today’s western culture, and the church, is so oriented towards comfort and cushiness that the realities of life once our kids leave home overwhelm them. With our health and safety cults affecting virtually every decision we make, it has become acceptable to complain about physical hardships and discomforts. In other words, we have raised a generation, both inside and outside the church, of wimps. Christianity requires us to be strong and tough. Our kids simply don’t have the backbone to walk in it. We’re a bunch of whiners and the church is no different.
One more thought. We were very much hands on with our children when they were little. However, when they got to middle school, for a variety of reasons, we fell into the trap of assuming the church was teaching them what we wanted them to be taught. Wrong.
We continued to have a lifestyle and conversation based on the principles of Christianity, but somehow we failed to realize that the church we attended, (and us, though we did not recognize it), was throwing condemnation of conduct to them, rather than teaching them to recognize God’s love and faithfulness to us and our need for Him. We all became too self-sufficient.
Today, 2 of our children love the Lord; the rest don’t.
Overall, I believe the hands-off parent issue is most likely the root of the problem; I saw it firsthand in the Christian high school I attended. Many “bad” kids (problems with the law, drugs, sex, etc.) were placed there to be sorted out by the religious school. It didn’t work, and one trip to the parents’ house would tell you why; they weren’t living their faith, and some weren’t even Christians at all.
I think “Fire Insurance Gospel” was the root of the group in school that actually were devout: willingly attended church, spoke of God, participated in Chapel, parents seemed devout. When we all graduated, a huge majority of these devout stopped attending church, too. While I wouldn’t say they turned to extreme sins or vices, but kept living “model citizen” lives, they weren’t interested in attending church anymore. They told me they were still Christians, still believed, didn’t even have doubts. But I got the sense that the rationale was, “Hey, I’m going to heaven, I said the prayer and I’m not doing anything bad. No need to attend church anymore.”
Dave N is correct; kids and youth need to feel a part of the congregation, not relegated to just their own meetings. The older people in the church I grew up in were very vocal against the youth group (though we did nothing wrong) and were most upset if the youth took over the evening service every once in a while. Once we turned 18, we didn’t feel very welcomed by the adults, and most everyone in the group left church.
I didn’t read the book, but I watched the podcast of Ken Ham’s “state of the nation” on this.
I absolutely agree that young people need to feel a part of the church, to have opportunity to discuss tricky questions in a supportive environment, and that there are a lot of cultural pressures against Christianity. My kids are home educated and we do not watch TV. My church youth group has parents attending; this is probably a good idea but I have not experienced it first hand as my kids are not old enough yet.
My own experience growing up was impaired by doubts on the creation/evolution debate. Here I think AiG is wrong, and that their approach is not scientific: there is a real danger that pseudoscience will discourage teenagers from Christianity as much as lack of biblical authority.
So I would say – please push biblical authority and inspiration, but hold off on pushing a particular interpretation.
Finally, there is a danger of discouragement in the face of attacks on Christianity. God is in control, but He doesn’t promise an easy ride. Blessings, but also persecutions in this age.
This topic illustrates the value of looking longterm. Everything we do should be intentional, and without a longterm goal, every ministry event a church does could become bits and pieces that are not connected. It’s healthy for the teachers to get together to talk about the collective vision of the Children’s Ministry, and even to talk with the youth leaders to ensure a sense of consistency with the youth program.
I totally agree that parents should be the primarily spiritual mentors in their chidlrens’ lives. I’d like to add one reason to the ones already listed: the kids will be with the same parents (hopefully) for 18 years before they leave home. During that time, they may have a dozen different teachers at Sunday School, but the parents get to know their own children very well and have the potential to impact them tremendously.
As far as questioning things of the Bible, here’s my perspective: not only is it okay for kids to question things, it’s good for them to do so. This often happens in the teenage years while they are figuring out what they believe for themselves, rather than just believing what adults have told them all along. I like to encourage kids to ask hard questions and then be there to help them sort things out (not just to tell them the right answer). And when a young person has a tough question that is not easily answered, it’s better to say, “I don’t know; let’s figure it out together” than trying to make up something on the spot.
It’s also helpful for an adult to openly share some of the things that they have questioned in the past as a way of connecting with the children or youth. I
Just wondering – has anyone who’s posted here actually read the book before posting?!
‘Cos it rather sounds like not one of you has!
At least have the respect to read the sample Chapter 1 available here:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/PublicStore/pdfs/SampleChapter/10-1-412.pdf
Myself I’ve just ordered the book and may post here again after reading. I’d encourage all of you to do the same!
I think churches are obsessed with issues that don’t matter…..most college students have been force fed religion…especially on gray areas thy aren’t especially important….evolution has a lot of evidence, homosexuals probably do need rights, doubting is normal, alcohol in moderation isn’t necessarily bad….college students are tired of being told that these issues are so important…..the church is no longer focused on God, Christ, love, forgiveness, and grace, but rather just gay marriage and abortion….that’s why, and it’s sick..
I think the problem is that once children hit high school and start becoming more independent, they need to begin the process of learning to spiritually feed themselves.
Up until age sixteen or so, kids are entirely dependent upon others for transportation, food, clothes, etc. Once they get that license and begin their independence, they start to pull away from the supports of parents and older individuals. If parents have not done their work in encouraging their children to spiritually grow themselves, I believe that’s why you see the sharp drop off between middle school and high school. Regardless of what method of biblical teaching you employ, age appropriate, generational, house chruches, whatever, there comes a point when Christians need to start feeding themselves, not expecting a preacher or teacher to do it for them. I believe that is a true mark of a disciple of Christ and one who TURLY lives out biblical principles.
I laughed at this post because it’s so typical of how some one will utilize information (whether accurate or not) and leverage it. The writer states “Clearly, most children’s ministries are failing at producing long-term disciples.” But a paragraph later the writer states, “Children’s ministers can determine the 1%, but it is the parents who have the power to decide what reaches their kids during the other 99%. If you disciple the parents, you disciple the kids.”
How can it be that children’s ministries are clearly failing when it has 1% of time to disciple kids? The writer’s summary is so broad and generic it’s ridiculous. As a Christ follower, I believe each person is responsible for their own spiritual development – regardless of age. Stop pointing the finger at Children’s Ministry, Youth Ministry, or a failing church. A person has to choose to follow Jesus or not. Thinking its the responsibility of a certain ministry, church or even a child’s parent is wrong and completely shallow.
@Dan
I wrote this, so I will explain myself and answer your questions. I would not say that it is ridiculous but simply the reality of children’s ministry.
Having attendance decreass from 95% to 11% by college shows that children’s ministries have failed to lay the foundation necessary to keep these kids committed to the church a decade later.
Granted with only 1% of a child’s week to work with, perhaps children’s ministries are set up to fail.
I have spent over 10 years teaching children’s ministry, and as a missionary’s kid growing up, I got to experience roughly 100 different children’s ministries.
I can vouch for it being possible to succeed in children’s ministry. Most children’s ministry lessons I heard are long forgotten, but certain children’s ministers had the ability to teach spiritually deep yet creative lessons where I still remember the spiritual truth today.
Bottom line is most children’s ministries are aiming at bringing kids to Christ and discipling them. If they are significantly failing at producing long term disciples, I see nothing wrong in identifying that failure and exploring how to improve the results.
Parents, children’s ministers, and youth ministers all have responsibility in helping disciple a child. Obviously, as a children’s minister, my focus is on what I can do better. That is not being shallow; it is being mature.
Enjoyed your blog post all the time. You will also notice we have posted this one on Kidology’s blog watch as well. Thanks for your thoughts.
It is time we stopped giving evolutionists easy targets and bringing the Bible and Christianity into scientific disrepute by teaching kids that the earth is only 6,000 years old and that Noah’s gentle flood created most of the earth’s rock strata. The “Affiliation of Christian Geologists”, experts in the field, know better, as did Oxford University’s very first professor of geology, Rev William Buckland, first man to name a dinosaur (as reported in “The Darwin Delusion” by G-Man).
Just a few thoughts on John Thomas’ remarks regarding the earth’s age being more than a few years old:
The term used in Genesis 7:11 to speak of the underwater fountains being broken is baqa`, which Strong’s Hebrew dictionary tells us is used as such:
“a primitive root; to cleave; generally, to rend, break, rip or open:–make a breach, break forth (into, out, in pieces, through, up), be ready to burst, cleave (asunder), cut out, divide, hatch, rend (asunder), rip up, tear, win.”
Far from being a “gentle flood” (if there is such a thing) the 40 days of rain was one of the most cataclysmic times this earth has ever seen. Underwater chasms being rent, the sky opening up for the first recorded rains, these were incredibly intense, working together to flood the entire globe until the uppermost points of the highest mountains were completely covered by 15 cubits of water. (Gen 7:20)
I visited the Mount St. Helens site 20 years after that one “small” explosion, and there were miles and miles of 60-100 feet thick layers of ash in the river valley. Layer upon layer visible that were laid down in a few days.
There is far more proof that the evolutionists claims are rooted in fancy instead of fact, rather than the other way around:
The Cambrian explosion, soft tissue found in supposedly million + year old dinosaur bones, no proof, EVER, of inter-species evolution, an appalling lack of links within supposed single species evolutionary variations, and even the non-Christian scientists are doubting major parts of Darwin’s hypothesis.
Despite the clamor, design continues to exist in nature, irreducible complexity is observable fact and has no intelligent detractor theories, and entropy continues to throw curve balls at ever theory which states that species are permanently improving themselves.
The reality too often, lately, is that science has been caught lying and conniving to support their status quo, and having been caught with their pants down, they refuse to deal honestly with the evidence as they claim every good scientist should.
I believe that a good portion of the comments here point to the fact that parents and spiritual leaders are not modeling selfless, sacrificial behavior (Christ’s behavior).
It isn’t because someone believes that the Bible is true as it is written, but rather that too many of us do not take it literally, whether it is Christ’s command to pick up our cross and follow him, or that the world as we know it was created through His speaking it into existence.
And it isn’t so much that younger people aren’t in Church, but that they don’t see the value in it. Why should they do or believe something that appears to not change their parents or spiritual leaders or even them into Christ-like disciples? Why should they value a message that the purveyors don’t even allow to change them?
Yes, we are cushy and well fed (physically) and yet cannot see how (spiritually) naked and needy we truly are. Repentance toward God has always been the Biblical answer, and we need to do it now more than ever. To turn again to the One who only can bless with truth and peace. Living for this life is the American way, living for God and others is the Christian way. In many places we have lost our way and we confuse the two. They are essentially very different. The Church needs to get the “American way” out of it’s sights and put the cross back in it’s rightful place. We have been tremendously blessed in America, but it is not our home. John 18:36
I know that some of this is only my opinion, but I think there is much merit in what I have shared here. I hope it blesses many.
I truly believe that this is a generational problem. The infiltration of the Armenian belief system has warped so many professing Christians lives. The magic prayer to “ask Jesus into your heart” has created much delusion in the minds of Christians. The doctrines of regeneration and repentance have seem to disappeared and American Christianity has been boiled down to an experience. Unless the truth is preached and taught to our kids and the Lord opens their eyes to the truth many, many, will say Lord, Lord, and our Lord will say “depart from you worker of iniquity, I never knew you. Matt.7:21. We must put feet to our prayers and come to God in true repentance and anguish for what we have done for true revival in America.