Good article Fr. Stephen Freeman shared...

[Dorothea]

...on FB today. I wanted to share it here.

Top 10 Reasons our Kids Leave Church « Marc5Solas

Here's a small excerpt of #10 on the list:

10. The Church is “Relevant”:

You didn’t misread that, I didn’t say irrelevant, I said RELEVANT. We’ve taken a historic, 2,000 year old faith, dressed it in plaid and skinny jeans and tried to sell it as “cool” to our kids. It’s not cool. It’s not modern. What we’re packaging is a cheap knockoff of the world we’re called to evangelize.

As the quote says, “When the ship is in the ocean, everything’s fine. When the ocean gets into the ship, you’re in trouble.”

I’m not ranting about “worldliness” as some pietistic bogeyman, I’m talking about the fact that we yawn at a 5-minute biblical text, but almost trip over ourselves fawning over a minor celebrity or athlete who makes any vague reference to being a Christian.

We’re like a fawning wanna-be just hoping the world will think we’re cool too, you know, just like you guys!

Our kids meet the real world and our “look, we’re cool like you” posing is mocked. In our effort to be “like them” we’ve become less of who we actually are. The middle-aged pastor trying to look like his 20-something audience isn’t relevant. Dress him up in skinny jeans and hand him a latte, it doesn’t matter. It’s not relevant, It’s comically cliché. The minute you aim to be “authentic”, you’re no longer authentic!

 

[NicholasF]

As someone who was brought up in a Protestant home I can definitely say a lot of this plays a role for most people these days. My issues were always more existential than these though, which is why it took me having a major depressive episode to finally accept Christ in my life.

Peace be with you,
Nicholas

 

[ArmyMatt]

awesome, thanks Dot!

 

[Dorothea]

As someone who was brought up in a Protestant home I can definitely say a lot of this plays a role for most people these days. My issues were always more existential than these though, which is why it took me having a major depressive episode to finally accept Christ in my life.

Peace be with you,
Nicholas

Maybe that's what the author was talking about when he mentioned not being able to have doubts or be depressed? Anyway, thanks for sharing your experience.

You're welcome, Matt!

 

[NicholasF]

Maybe that's what the author was talking about when he mentioned not being able to have doubts or be depressed? Anyway, thanks for sharing your experience.

You're welcome, Matt!

I don't think so, I never felt the need to pretend to not have doubts or be depressed. My issues were more so about "Why does it matter that Christianity is true?" Once my ego got crushed with self-doubts and I became completely melancholy that was when I finally experienced the beauty in all things.

Peace be with you,
Nicholas

 

[GregConstantine]

I read through this list and honestly don't see much that applies to us Orthodox in regards to why our youth leave the Orthodox Church when graduating from high school.

the point about being treated intellengently (the one about the atheist and agnostics) I would say that does have some relevent to us as Orthodox. We do not do very good job catechising our youth, but rather, turn everything into something about our ethnic heritage, or for the converts, turning everything into this endless, pointless theological debates at coffee hour.

While this article was interesting, I'd would like to see a list of "10 reasons why Orthodox youth leave the Church"

I work with Orthodox youth with OCF, in case anyone is wondering, and I see so many Orthodox youths leave the Church when graduating, and flat out refuse to attend any OCF events held on their campuses.

 

[Dorothea]

I don't think so, I never felt the need to pretend to not have doubts or be depressed. My issues were more so about "Why does it matter that Christianity is true?" Once my ego got crushed with self-doubts and I became completely melancholy that was when I finally experienced the beauty in all things.

Peace be with you,
Nicholas

ah, I see. Thank God that He leads us through these difficult times.

 

[Dorothea]

I read through this list and honestly don't see much that applies to us Orthodox in regards to why our youth leave the Orthodox Church when graduating from high school.

the point about being treated intellengently (the one about the atheist and agnostics) I would say that does have some relevent to us as Orthodox. We do not do very good job catechising our youth, but rather, turn everything into something about our ethnic heritage, or for the converts, turning everything into this endless, pointless theological debates at coffee hour.

While this article was interesting, I'd would like to see a list of "10 reasons why Orthodox youth leave the Church"

I work with Orthodox youth with OCF, in case anyone is wondering, and I see so many Orthodox youths leave the Church when graduating, and flat out refuse to attend any OCF events held on their campuses.

It's difficult to keep the youth close to the Church when they graduate high school and are in college, no matter what their Christian background, imo. There is that time where they have to go out and claim their faith their own and there is a time of discovering themselves. I hope that doesn't sound too secular or Freudian.

 

[NicholasF]

The three most common reasons I've seen Orthodox Christians leave the Church have been, Atheism/Agnosticism, not understanding Orthodox theology and/or traditions (I've seen this with a lot of Orthodox Christians who have converted to Evangelicalism), and the theological "certainty" promised in Roman Catholicism.

 

[gracefullamb]

.

 

[Kristos]

I think one thing he over-looks is that most of the non-denominational evangelical "communities" are subjective by nature, so simply trying to shift the focus to the gospel might not accomplish much except reveal even more dysfunction. He talks about objective truth and the historic church, but I don't see how any protestant mega-church could possibly lay any claim that.

 

[NicholasF]

NicholasF, I wonder if part of the problem you bring up might be due to parents just taking it for granted their children know and understand the faith. I just generally get this impression some of the youth, who have been raised in the Church, that outside of Sunday school, no one explaining anything to them or teaching anything. It is all fine and good that we have Sunday school to teach our youth, but it becomes kind of pointless if the parents are not also teaching them and reinforcing everything at home throughout the week. The time in the Liturgy and in Sunday school is not going to be enough for our youth to truly understand their faith, let alone think it matters once they become older.

I think it is most likely a combination of not truly understanding the faith as well as, at least in America, we are surrounded by a culture war between Mordernism and Post-Modernism, which Orthodoxy doesn't fit into so when someone comes to age they can't fit their faith into the reality has been created around them.

Peace be with you,
Nicholas

 

[Dorothea]

Just a small explanation. Yes, the article is about evangelical churches and why the youth leaves, and I guess I just shared it to show keeping up with worldly trends does not prove well for the true faith because Christianity is not of this world. We live in it but are not of it.

 

[Fotina]

Someone said parents must become saints if we want our children to love God and the Church, and pray to God about our children more then talking to children about God.

The newly enthroned Patriarch John X of Antioch is one of 3 of 4 siblings who are monastics. His brother is Metropolitan of Aleppo, and a sister is a nun. His blessed parents raised them in a pious home his biography says, like St. Emilia, Mother of Sts. Basil and Gregory.

She was the daughter of a martyr and the daughter-in-law of Macrina the Elder. Along with her husband, Basil the Elder, she gave birth to ten children. She instilled the Orthodox faith in her children, teaching them to pray and devote their lives to the service of the Church. As a result of her zealous yet maternal instruction of her children, five of them are commemorated as saints on the Church calendar: Sts. Macrina, Basil, Peter of Sebaste, Gregory of Nyssa, and Theosebia, a deaconess. Therefore, Saint Emilia is often called “the mother of saints.”

 

[Dorothea]

I've heard that said before, Fotina. Thank you for sharing that. I need to remember to pray for my children more. Pray like Elder Porphyrios says to.