Systematic Abandonment of the Youth

World Magazine has a very interesting article titled The Other Unreached People Group. I found that this article intersected well with the post that I shared last week on the importance of parents in my youth ministry. Mindy Belz writes in the article about the difference between the 10/40 Window and the 10/30 Window. Ms. Belz tells us that:

"The 10/40 Window, that geographic band between 10 and 40 degrees north latitude that's home to the largest unreached people groups—and the poorest and most spiritually impoverished—in the world. Its billion account for the majority of the world's Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists."

This part of the world contains some of the greatest socioeconomic issues and the least amount of access to the Christian message and resources. But Belz shares that Eric Larson and Jonathan Taylor are now identifying the 10/30 Window. They feel that Christian missions should not just look at things geographically but also in terms of generations. The 10/30 Window is the group of people in the world that are between the ages of 10 and 30. Taylor says that this age range presents Christians with a unique challenge:

"(It is) the largest unreached people group in human history, larger than the 100 largest geographically defined unreached people groups combined."

The article identifies three main challenges being faced by this youthful demographic. The first is the extension of adolescence and the second is the globalization of this generation through social media on the Internet. Where this article intersects with my understanding of the importance of parents in youth ministry comes because of what Larson says is the abandonment of youth by their parents:

"Towering alongside these new trends is what Larsen calls 'the systemic adult abandonment of the young.' The very things that unite young people divide them from adults. They learn the day's conversation topics from a social media website, not the dinner table. They go to YouTube for direction on how to change the oil in the car, not Dad. If they have a question about who took the first walk on the moon or what is an HPV vaccine, they're more likely to google it than to ask in the car on the way home from school. 

"And clearly parents have turned away from youth, particularly in the West (and often in pursuit of extending their own youth). Even in our Christian circles adults often are no longer a treasury of wisdom and experience for children but a directory of services. The Christian school or the homeschool curriculum educates and disciplines them, the youth group entertains them, and clinical experts are there to rehabilitate them when they fall."

One of the things that I look back on in my youth was the importance of my parents–especially my father–in terms of my own faith development. But it also goes beyond that. My parents were a large influence in my life in a number of areas and I wonder how different my life would be today if they had been more detached. I have also witnessed the importance of adults within the church taking an active role in the lives of youth. In many cases these adults stood in as a sort of surrogate parents. They helped out where the biological parents needed help. All adults in the church play an important role in the lives of the youth in the church.

"Larsen's plea is simple and direct: 'We are calling on an entire adult population to turn its hearts to the young.'

"His plea is not only to parents but to what he calls a covenant community of adults who will recognize the value of training the next generation in all things at all levels—and not as in 'we hire some people and we say we have done it.'

"Larsen believes it's significant that the Old Testament ends in Malachi with the promise of the prophet who will 'turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers ...' (Malachi 4:6) and that the New Testament begins with the birth of a baby, an infant savior, Himself born to parents who today would be considered part of the 10/30 Window.

The role of reaching the youth does not belong to the "hired" youth pastor. It lies in the hands of all of the adults within the church.

The Importance of Parents

I hope that everyone had a great holiday week. My wife and I had a wonderful time with family and friends. We also were able to spend some time away from the busyness of the holidays in order to just rest. Half of the time we spent in sunny and warm Claremont, California and half was spent in cold and windy Chicago.

Over the course of the holidays I did not do any writing but I did a fair amount of reading. I never got to the book that I was intending to read but I did read a number of articles and blogs. One that really caught my eye was an article by Tim Challies entitled I Am Unalarmed. It is an article about how different surveys have found that anywhere from 60% to 94% of those that attended church during high school end up leaving the church shortly after leaving high school. As a former youth pastor, it is a very alarming statistic. But Challies writes this article from his perspective of being a parent rather than from the perspective of being a pastor. He says:

"These statistics are alarming, and particularly so to those of us who are raising children and earnestly praying that the Lord would save them. It has often been my prayer that the Lord would save my children while they are young, long before they desire to taste the world’s pleasures as unsaved adults. According to these reports this is unlikely. Statistically speaking, I can have little hope. 

"Each of these studies appears to show that Christians are doing a very poor job of reaching the children in their midst. Ironically, the statistics are used to support solutions that reach from one end of the spectrum to the other: they vary from more programs for teens to fewer programs to teens to abolishing all programs for all children. 

"These statistics are widely quoted, widely believed, but I remain unalarmed by them. I remain skeptical about the results. Allow me to explain myself."

Challies goes on to detail how he believes that these youth that are falling away are doing so because they are not seeing the true Gospel in action within the church or in their own homes. It is a case of people making a mental assent to what the Bible teaches but not living it out in practice:

"If 7 in 10 young people leave the church it may well be because 7 in 10 parents are not immersing their children in the gospel from a young age. They are not preaching that gospel to their children and they are not living as if that gospel is true. That may be an overstatement, but I do not want you to miss the point. Many, many children, a disheartening number, are raised to believe they are Christians by parents who just as erroneously also believe that they, the parents, are Christians. Many more are raised by parents who never model the beauty of gospel living. Such children barely stand a chance."

Challies is not trying to minimize the seriousness of youth walking away from the church. What he is pointing out is that the youth are walking away from hypocrisy.

One of the most important–and hardest–lessons that I learned throughout my youth ministry experience is the importance of parents. When I first started out my view was to include the parents whenever I was in need of help. The parents were important because they could help me out. But as I matured and gained a better understanding of how family systems work I started to ask parents to help out because they were important to the youth ministry.

It was my great fortune both early and late in my youth ministry career to have parents and other adults that were so willing to go out of their way to help me out. Their extraordinary efforts made all the difference. They gave up time, food, money and prayer.

It has become clear to me that the success of a youth ministry does not rest in the youth pastor. Yes a good youth pastor is important. But it is highly likely that the youth ministry will be ultimately unsuccessful if the youth do not see Christianity being lived out as Christ intended it to be lived out in the lives of their parents and in the lives of the other adults in the church.

Yes there are those kids that beat the odds both for the good and the bad. There are those kids that have poor influences that turn out to be stellar. And there are those kids that have solid parental influence that end up rebelling to the point of having very serious problems. But it is still parents that have the highest influence in their kids lives. It means that if we want the youth of the church to remain committed to the church as they move into adulthood then we first need strong and committed parents and other adults in the church. It means that if we want to have a strong and successful youth ministry then we as adults and parents need to make extraordinary efforts to be involved. 

There is a reason that we say that the apple does not fall far from the tree.