Can anything be done to reverse the trend of 70%+ of Christian youth leaving the Church after 18?

[Kersh]

The average evangelical church, in its attempt to be "relevant", has lost all relevance, and the kids know it.

I am discovering more and more that real Christian relevance comes through holiness and that there is no program that an institutional church cam develop to generate holiness. The church instead serves as an environment in which the Holy Spirit can lead its members into holiness.

 

[Mountain_Girl406]

Why on earth would you want to reverse something like this OP. Are you not eager for this to be all over with at the second coming? Wether these kids can be grouped with the masses who actually fall away from faith or not, one thing for sure. There is a trend in regards to people turning from faith. I've seen it in my home congregation. I've watched the attendance numbers drop over the years.. Id even say I "somewhat" fell away and took a temporary atheists stand despite not fully agreeing with the notion internally. This all happened the minute I was set free from my parents control while attending college in another country; however I managed to bounce back while abroad.

Despite this being an unfortunate thing too witness you should be happy at the same time. Happy that you yourself haven't fallen away and that you're alive to watch the prophecy unfold. Look how close we are!

2 Thessalonians 2:3
Let no man deceive you by any means:for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition

How can one be happy if they believe their children will suffer eternal torment for leaving the church?

 

[ViaCrucis]

God's manifested Presence.

We call that the Eucharist, and it's in most churches.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

Personally I believe the Church's goal shouldn't be to do "things" to attract people or keep people "interested", but instead to just be faithful. Preach the Gospel, administer the Sacraments, be the Church.

Some people will leave, some people will return, new people will show up. It's not our job to be innovators of religion, but to faithfully dispense the faith as we have received it.

Now I do think there are some culprits that we can take issue with. There are certainly toxic churches and toxic religious environments--I grew up in such environments and save for the grace of God likely would have jumped ship long ago. Some churches also can stand staunchly against intellectual honesty and inquiry, asserting that one must make a choice between faith and science. When many young people finally enter into the academic world and discover the sheer amount of evidence behind the science they were told to reject, they may very well throw everything out and conclude that the entire thing was all a lie. Dogmatic Young Earth Creationism has been the breeding ground of Atheism for decades now.

But a church that preaches the Gospel, a church that administers the Sacraments, a church that faithfully does as the Church has been told--don't stop being that Church because of the shifting tides of fad and fashion. Our goal as the Church isn't to get people in the church door, but to keep the church door open as God brings them in.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[JaeMelo]

How can one be happy if they believe their children will suffer eternal torment for leaving the church?

What do you propose should be done to make you happy?! Should God stop his plans or bend the rules to tailor to you or anyone else's child's disobedience?! That would be unfair, no? That is not to say you are implying this but simply to show how selfish the flip side to the issue can be especially for the saved believers both deceased and alive who did/are actively doing Gods will with obedience and patiently waiting for his second coming.

However; why do you believe that your children will suffer eternal torment?! Have they fallen away? What makes you so sure your kids won't bounce back like I did? It took 5 years for the lightbulb in my head to go off.

 

[EastCoastRemnant]

How can one be happy if they believe their children will suffer eternal torment for leaving the church?

Because they love Jesus more... remember the scripture says that those that love family, friends and the world more than Him are not worthy of Him?

 

[JaeMelo]

Because they love Jesus more... remember the scripture says that those that love family, friends and the world more than Him are not worthy of Him.

Well said brother, I totally forgot about that scripture.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Because they love Jesus more... remember the scripture says that those that love family, friends and the world more than Him are not worthy of Him?

Which has literally nothing to do about being happy that one's loved ones are eternally damned and everything to do with clinging to familial relationships in order to avoid taking the Lord seriously.

If one turns away from Christ or refuses Christ because of one's sense of family obligation, that's the issue there; it is not, "I have Jesus, so screw grandpa. Happy burning in hell forever, gramps! lololol"

-CryptoLutheran

 

[EastCoastRemnant]

Which has literally nothing to do about being happy that one's loved ones are eternally damned and everything to do with clinging to familial relationships in order to avoid taking the Lord seriously.

If one turns away from Christ or refuses Christ because of one's sense of family obligation, that's the issue there; it is not, "I have Jesus, so screw grandpa. Happy burning in hell forever, gramps! lololol"

-CryptoLutheran

Odd way of looking at it... no one should be happy about anyone not gaining eternity. God wishes that none of us be lost...

 

[supersoldier71]

If we are preaching the Gospel of Christ and Him crucified, making disciples and fulfilling the two Great Commandments as well as we can, then we don't have to "do" anything more.

However, most of us still have room to improve in all three of these areas. If we want to help people, we must grow in our own relationship with God. What has been described are the actions of people who have never had a real relationship with God, merely an association with a social group (a local church). And hypocrisy is never attractive, so if our lives do not match our professions of faith, our kids will definitely notice that.

 

[EastCoastRemnant]

Which has literally nothing to do about being happy that one's loved ones are eternally damned and everything to do with clinging to familial relationships in order to avoid taking the Lord seriously.

If one turns away from Christ or refuses Christ because of one's sense of family obligation, that's the issue there; it is not, "I have Jesus, so screw grandpa. Happy burning in hell forever, gramps! lololol"

-CryptoLutheran

I think we need to ask ourselves the hard questions like is this unsaved person's blood required at our hand? What did we do/not do that caused a loved one to not have salvation? Was it strictly based on their rejection of truth?

I think about this often when I look around my workplace and my community at large... have I told everyone I meet about the Good News?... sadly, my answer would have to be no. Is my life and my character a witness to God's love and evidence that Christ is living in me?

 

[ViaCrucis]

I think we need to ask ourselves the hard questions like is this unsaved person's blood required at our hand? What did we do/not do that caused a loved one to not have salvation? Was it strictly based on their rejection of truth?

I think about this often when I look around my workplace and my community at large... have I told everyone I meet about the Good News?... sadly, my answer would have to be no. Is my life and my character a witness to God's love and evidence that Christ is living in me?

The salvation of others isn't in our hands. That's God's work, not our work.

Fortunately I'm no longer in a tradition that places the weight of both my salvation and the salvation of others solely upon my ability. As a teenager I was regularly bombarded with long guilt-ridden lectures that if I, an adolescent child, wasn't trying to "bring people to Jesus" in any way I could then I would have hear their anguish-filled screams as they cried out, to me, why I didn't try harder.

As though I, sin-ridden me, could through my own power make someone else a Christian when I couldn't even make myself one. It is solely by the grace and mercy of God, and the power of His Gospel, that makes someone a Christian.

Who is "in" and who is "out" is God's prerogative, not mine.

By the grace of God I left that world a long time ago and haven't once looked back.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[jimmyjimmy]

It's not our job to be innovators of religion, but to faithfully dispense the faith as we have received it.

I agree. The church does not need architects, she already has one. The church needs builders who work with the blueprint for "church growth" that our Lord has already provided: Preach, baptize, and teach (Matt 28:16-20).

As a teenager I was regularly bombarded with long guilt-ridden lectures that if I, an adolescent child, wasn't trying to "bring people to Jesus" in any way I could then I would have hear their anguish-filled screams as they cried out, to me, why I didn't try harder.

Hey, we went to the same church!

Seriously, most churches are so lax regarding sin and it's consequences, that this likely doesn't happen nearly as much now; although I'm certain it still happens to some degree because evangelicals remain largely Pelagian in their soteriology, which leads to much madness in the church. Bad theology has consequences.

 

[ChristsSoldier115]

Because for the past 30-40 years the church has been more concerned with having converts and not disciples. I keep saying this, but its mentorship, or a lack thereof.

 

[jimmyjimmy]

[MED

 

[jimmyjimmy]

Deleted

 

[ChristsSoldier115]

Discipleship is a long, and sometimes life long, one on one deal. Churches in America particularly have this problem, because americans "never have time" for that sort of thing. Since I have been working a degree on global studies, the missionaries I come come across, since I began studying, have pointed that out as the key to their long term effects of church planting in other areas of the world. One told me he lived in an area for 28 years. He won and discipled like 10 people, but they in turn did the same to small groups of people. A church grew slowly over time with his small efforts Maybe americans are expecting the old big tent revival days of the 1970s where "many were won to Christ". The biggest thing the missionaries all tell m is what Crypto points out as another problem, that they did literally nothing but go and say a few words and it was all the Holy Spirit who did the real effort.

 

[supersoldier71]

[MED

This is so wrong and so wrong on every possible level....

I'll put it like this: if this doesn't say (SCREAM) "wrong" to you, then we're probably not going to agree on much.

@thatbrian Not talking to you, my friend, I'm pretty sure we agree.

 

[Kersh]

Discipleship is a long, and sometimes life long, one on one deal. Churches in America particularly have this problem, because americans "never have time" for that sort of thing. Since I have been working a degree on global studies, the missionaries I come come across, since I began studying, have pointed that out as the key to their long term effects of church planting in other areas of the world. One told me he lived in an area for 28 years. He won and discipled like 10 people, but they in turn did the same to small groups of people. A church grew slowly over time with his small efforts Maybe americans are expecting the old big tent revival days of the 1970s where "many were won to Christ". The biggest thing the missionaries all tell m is what Crypto points out as another problem, that they did literally nothing but go and say a few words and it was all the Holy Spirit who did the real effort.

I feel like one potential problem is how the evangelical church has applied the great commission. Matthew 28:19-20 has become:

19 Therefore go and make [converts] of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to [do what feels right, because they're saved by grace anyway. And surely I am with always [except when I'm inconvenient to you], to the very end of the age.”

When I talk to other who group in the midst of the holiness movement, I hear an equally bad, but somewhat opposite problem, where churches have been insisting that people obey rules that God has never laid down, simply for the sake of holiness and "differentness". Implicit in this is the belief that holiness can be obtained through our own efforts, rather than by a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit.

On the one hand, we need to stop allowing salvation by grace through faith to be interpreted as a license to immorality or apathy. On the other, we need to emphasize that holiness comes not by our own efforts, but but God's work within us; all we can do is choose to be willing to be changed.

 

[Kersh]

[MED

"And when young Jesus Skywalker reached a certain age, Joseph Solo explained to him, 'I am not your real father; you are adopted' But, it would be many years until the moment when he was baptized in the Jordan that his true father God Vader would call down from heaven, 'Jesus, I am your father.'"