Disappointment with Christ
March 24, 2013
Sound the alarm
March 26, 2013

At a youth training conference I recently attended, the keynote speaker – Chap Clark– cited what he believed to be the main reason for the devastating numbers of young people leaving the church after graduating high school. Essentially, he said that youth groups are not assimilated into the rest of the congregation, but instead function almost as parachurch organizations. Therefore, when youth group ends and the teens graduate, they feel as though they have no place among the rest of the church body because it feels like an entirely different organization for them.

While Clark’s assessment certainly is true, I believe that there’s something much more basic and more troubling at the core of why young people are forsaking their faith in droves: they’ve simply had no personal, life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ.

If a church experience consists primarily of a system of principals and a theology, very soon those ideals will come head-to-head with the reality of a mocking, sinister, seductive world, led and fed by the Father of Lies. Without a revelation of the Person of Jesus Christ, what chance does anyone – especially a young person – have against such an environment?

Whenever the young people I interact with (high school and college age) have a personal revelation of Jesus Christ, there is a consuming hunger for Him that transcends the generational gap. They want more of Him, more of the Holy Spirit. They want to be where He shows up, and they flock to prayer groups and Bible studies where His Presence can be found, with multiple generations praying, worshiping, fellowshipping, and studying the word together. This was certainly true of myself when I was in my mid-twenties and had, in a most unlikely place, an encounter with Christ that revolutionized my life. After that, I thoroughly enjoyed worshiping and travailing in prayer with people my parents’ and grandparents’ ages – so long as the Holy Spirit was present.

Affirming Clark’s findings, scripture does not mention “youth ministry” as something that is separate or distinct in the body of Christ. The first church, filled with the Holy Spirit “were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them” (Acts 4:32).

This picture of the first church in Acts brings up another reason why young people in the West might be leaving the institutional church. With so much of it spiritually dead, why would anyone who did have a personal encounter with Jesus Christ want to return to it?  It is morbidly depressing to be full of the Holy Spirit and in a church gathering in which His Presence is absent.

Ever since Jesus told the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30), His followers have been given a heads-up that there are actually two churches at work in the world: the true church, which is the Bride of Christ, His Body – and there’s the counterfeit, a harlot, that resembles and mimics the Bride, but in reality is an anti-Christ church, of which the Enemy is head.

The two churches growing alongside one another – the wheat and the tares – will be the case until Christ’s return. Whenever we discuss statistics for “the church” in America, it is wise to distinguish which is which – the Body of Christ (Colossians 1:18, 1 Corinthians 12:12, Eph 5:25-27, etc.) or the harlot, comprised of false teachers (Matthew 7:22-23, 1 John 2:19, 2 Timothy 3:5, etc.). In the institutional church in America, there is a great deal of overlap between the two, which in turn can be a source of confusion as to what is really going on.

What are your thoughts and observations on why people – especially young adults – are leaving church? Are the ones you know forsaking their faith? Or are they forsaking a powerless institution yet retaining their core beliefs?

Emily Tomko
Emily Tomko
Emily writes with fierce compassion and a deep desire to see people freed from the miry clay of this world and walking in the truth. Emily is available to minister at women’s retreats and youth functions, college fellowships, and business women meetings.

8 Comments

  1. Jake Kail says:

    Great thoughts Emily. I was at a pastor’s meeting last week where this topic was the main theme of discussion. I have observed this: many youth groups focus more on getting people connected to the group than to Jesus. So…when they go off to college with no real connection to the Lord and so naturally they don’t want to connect to the church.

    This is a complex topic, but I think you hit the nail on the head: “they’ve simply had no personal, life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ.”

    • Emily Tomko says:

      Thanks, Jake. It definitely is complex. I think how there was one church in Antioch. When I think about the church in Acts, it leads me to pondering the future of the church – the true church – and how it will look in America under intense persecution. All that we know is anything that isn’t born of the Spirit will be removed.

  2. Nancy Shank says:

    This is a complex topic as was stated. But I think one of the things that some teens/college kids see is that the Church is not distinct from the world. By that I mean I think we some times strive to be so relevant to get nonbelievers in the door that we forget that we are to be radical. Christianity is not for sissys but for those who are willing to count the cost as Jesus did. I’m certainly for being relevant but we need to make sure it’s not at the cost of standing for the truth and not wavering on clear Biblical values (many of which are being attacked today). I’m not pointing the finger at any church in particular or any individual or suggesting any form of legalism, just adding a word of caution and a call to be true to the Word.

  3. Emily Tomko says:

    Amen, Nancy. Totally agree. We take cues from the culture instead of taking up our cross and following Him. Thanks for your thoughts.

  4. Allison says:

    I just read a book called You Lost Me, and they talk about how a lot of young adults leave the church but aren’t leaving the faith. It is an interesting read. Here is a good article out of that book.
    http://www.barna.org/teens-next-gen-articles/528-six-reasons-young-christians-leave-church

    • Emily Tomko says:

      Allison, thanks for linking this article – I saw this somewhere, maybe on Mike Burns’ web site, but I didn’t take the time to read it. I just read it now and it’s given me a lot to chew on. #3 is interesting (I blogged on that topic). Good Bible teaching can remedy the myth that science and scripture are incompatible. I’ve been hearing a lot lately about a shift in the church – that the gifts and offices have been restored – but a lot of leadership isn’t understanding that the health of the church isn’t necessarily translating into numbers.

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