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Does your church like teenagers?
Most would answer a hearty and enthusiastic, “Of course!” Why else are you buying all that pizza, offering all those programs, and doing everything you can to teach and care for your teens? You want to keep them in church.
But lurking in many hearts is a different feeling, something churches would never say out loud that simmers silent and deadly below the surface: They actually don’t like young people.
Three Ways to Guarantee Teens Leave the Church
For them, teens are too messy, too moody, too dramatic, too distracting, too obsessive, and too immature. The problems, sins, and struggles teens deal with are just too much. These churches’ greatest fear isn’t losing their teens; it’s keeping them. Deep down they desperately want to know, “How do I get young people out of the church?”
Fortunately for those churches, I have three sure-fire ways to guarantee young people leave – and don’t come back.
1. Teach them spiritual milk, not meat.
If you want to push young people away, don’t go deep with them. Avoid theology. Stay with the superficial, the fluffy, and the familiar. Teach them the story of David and Goliath—but make the point about facing our personal giants, instead of God working for His glory. Preach moralism, niceness, and how to be a good citizen, with a Jesus twist. Then, when life gets difficult and they experience trials, their skin-deep spirituality will fail them, and they will leave the church.
Teach them what to believe, but not why they believe it. Tell them God exists, that he’s in control of everything, that Jesus rose from the dead, but give them no foundation for those truths. Skirt Scripture, discourage questions and healthy discussion, and exalt feelings. Then, when teens enter the real world and encounter challenges to the gospel, their shaky faith will crumble and they will leave the church.
Whatever you do, don’t teach them about sin. But if you must, keep to the big ones – murder, adultery, grand theft auto. Teens’ self-esteem is fragile, so do all you can to preserve it. Avoid talking about lust, loving their enemies, showing humility on social media, modesty, or other touchy teen subjects. Then, when they’re faced with the temptation to be exactly like the world, they’ll naturally give in – and leave the church.