“What do we do about our kids?” The group of parents sat together in my office,
wiping their eyes. I’m a high school pastor, but for once, they weren’t talking
about 16-year-olds drinking and partying. Each had a story to tell about a
“good Christian” child, raised in their home and in our church, who had walked
away from the faith during the college years.
These children had come through
our church’s youth program, gone on short-term mission trips, and served in
several different ministries during their teenage years. Now they didn’t want
anything to do with it anymore. And, somehow, these mothers’ ideas for our
church to send college students “care packages” during their freshman year to
help them feel connected to the church didn’t strike me as a solution with
quite enough depth.
The daunting
statistics about church-going youth keep rolling in. Panic ensues.
What are we doing wrong in our churches? In our youth ministries?
It’s hard to sort through the
various reports and find the real story. And there is no one easy solution for
bringing all of those “lost” kids back into the church, other than continuing
to pray for them and speaking the gospel into their lives. However, we can all
look at the 20-somethings in our churches who are engaged and
involved in ministry. What is it that sets apart the kids who stay in
the church? Here are just a few observations I have made about such kids, with
a few applications for those of us serving in youth ministry.
1. They are converted.
The Apostle Paul, interestingly
enough, doesn’t use phrases like “nominal Christian” or “pretty good kid.” The
Bible doesn’t seem to mess around with platitudes like: “Yeah, it’s a shame he
did that, but he’s got a good heart.” When we listen to the witness of
Scripture, particularly on the topic of conversion, we find that there is very
little wiggle room.
Listen to these words: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,
he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Cor. 5:17) We youth
pastors need to get back to understanding salvation as what it really is: a
miracle that comes from the glorious power of God through the working of the
Holy Spirit.
We need to stop talking about
“good kids.” We need to stop being pleased with attendance at youth group and
fun retreats. We need to start getting on our knees and praying that the Holy
Spirit will do miraculous saving work in the hearts of our students as the Word
of God speaks to them. In short, we need to get back to a focus on conversion.
How many of us are preaching to “unconverted evangelicals”? Youth pastors, we
need to preach, teach, and talk—all the while praying fervently for the
miraculous work of regeneration to occur in the hearts and souls of our
students by the power of the Holy Spirit!
When that happens—when the “old goes”
and the “new comes”—it will not be iffy. We will not be dealing with a group of
“nominal Christians.” We will be ready to teach, disciple, and equip a
generation of future church leaders—“new creations”!—who are hungry to know and
speak God’s Word. It is converted students who go on to love Jesus and serve
the church.
2. They have been equipped, not entertained.
Recently, we had “man day” with
some of the guys in our youth group. We began with an hour of basketball at the
local park, moved to an intense game of 16” (“Chicago Style”) softball, and
finished the afternoon by gorging ourselves on meaty pizzas and 2-liters of soda.
I am not against fun (or gross, depending on your opinion of the afternoon I
just described) things in youth ministry.
But youth pastors especially need to
keep repeating the words of Ephesians 4:11-12 to themselves: “[Christ] gave…the
teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the
body of Christ.” Christ gives us—teachers—to the church, not for entertainment,
encouragement, examples, or even friendship primarily. He gives us to the
church to “equip” the saints to do gospel ministry in order that the church of
Christ may be built up.
If I have not equipped the
students in my ministry to share the gospel, disciple a younger believer, and
lead a Bible study, then I have not fulfilled my calling to them, no matter how
good my sermons have been. We pray for conversion; that is all we can do, for
it is entirely a gracious gift of God.
But after conversion, it is our
Christ-given duty to help fan into flame a faith that serves, leads, teaches,
and grows. If our students leave high school without Bible-reading habits,
Bible-study skills, and strong examples of discipleship and prayer, we have
lost them. We have entertained, not equipped them…and it may indeed be time to
panic!
Forget your youth programs for a
second. Are we sending out from our ministries the kind of students who will
show up to college in a different state, join a church, and begin doing the
work of gospel ministry there without ever being asked? Are we equipping them
to that end, or are we merely giving them a good time while they’re with us?
We
don’t need youth group junkies; we need to be growing churchmen and churchwomen
who are equipped to teach, lead, and serve.
Put your youth ministry strategies
aside as you look at that 16-year-old young man and ask: “How can I spend four
years with this kid, helping him become the best church deacon and sixth-grade
Sunday school class teacher he can be, ten years down the road?”
3. Their parents preached the gospel to them.
As a youth pastor, I can’t do all
this. All this equipping that I’m talking about is utterly beyond my limited
capabilities. It is impossible for me to bring conversion, of course, but it is
also impossible for me to have an equipping ministry that sends out vibrant
churchmen and churchwomen if my ministry is not being reinforced tenfold in the
students’ homes. The common thread that binds together almost every
ministry-minded 20-something that I know is abundantly clear: a home where the
gospel was not peripheral but absolutely central.
The 20-somethings who are
serving, leading, and driving the ministries at our church were kids whose
parents made them go to church. They are kids whose parents punished them and
held them accountable when they were rebellious. They are kids whose parents
read the Bible around the dinner table every night. And they are kids whose
parents were tough but who ultimately operated from a framework of grace that
held up the cross of Jesus as the basis for peace with God and forgiveness
toward one another.
This is not a formula! Kids from
wonderful gospel-centered homes leave the church; people from messed-up family
backgrounds find eternal life in Jesus and have beautiful marriages and
families. But it’s also not a crapshoot. In general, children who are led in
their faith during their growing-up years by parents who love Jesus vibrantly,
serve their church actively, and saturate their home with the gospel
completely, grow up to love Jesus and the church. The words of Proverbs 22:6 do
not constitute a formula that is true 100 percent of the time, but they do
provide us with a principle that comes from the gracious plan of God, the God
who delights to see his gracious Word passed from generation to generation:
“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not
depart from it.”
Youth pastors, pray with all your
might for true conversion; that is God’s work. Equip the saints for the work of
the ministry; that is your work. Parents, preach the gospel and live the gospel
for your children; our work depends on you.
Jon Nielson is the
college pastor at College Church in Wheaton, Illinois. He blogs at Something
More Sure.
The post originally appeared on The Gospel Coalition.
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