last week there was a forum going about miley cyrus 'hannah montana'. has anyone seen the headlines about her this morn?

This is an interesting issue and there is plenty of blame to go around I suppose. Church, parents, public schools, TV/media, etc. I've been leading The Truth Project at our SBC church and the Christian Worldview and battle of worldviews is so new and startling to many of the adult attendees.How can they instill a Christian Worldview with our youth if they themselves don't know it?
I am now presenting The Truth Project to our youth (13 year olds +/-) and they are gobbling it up and learning better about the power of Christianity in their day to day lives along with the lies of the world. We spend a lot of time discussing these issues because they are so hungry for it. I am presenting David Noebel's Understanding The Times to our high school youth in Sunday School and then having them research the web for Christian based sites that dispell the lies they learn in public school ( this groups' attendance is too sproadic to tell if it is effective yet).
It still will come down to what is in each persons heart, but at least these youth will be able to better discern the Truth Vs the lie.

To smbga, I agree that forcing youth to go to church is not a good idea and that there are many who have made church attendance a legalistic issue as opposed to an awesome opportunity to join other believers in worshipping God, my challenge to people who profess to be Christians but avoid church attendance and/or involvement is granted you can't be at church every time the doors are open nor do I believe that is God's expectation of His children, but why would you not want to be in both fellowship and worship with other believers on a regular basis. Show me a person's priorities and where they invest their time and I'll show you who truly is the Lord of their life. Church is one of the few organizations where lack of attendance and giving appears to have little if any impact on a person's membership status, but it speaks loads with regards to their relationship to God and other believers.

I have relatives who truly think that if they aren't in church every Sunday, then God is going to punish them. I believed it for a long time. But thank God I found out the Truth. Teaching like this is what hurts the youth. It causes them to hate God

The shame falls to the parents.

Berean 07 I agree with you wholeheartedly we need to be challenging parents to take on their rightful roles in the spiritual raising of their children, but when a majority of your kids and youth come from unchurched backgrounds then we as the Church must step-up and set a Christ-like example that will show these young people not only the importance of coming to Christ, but also the importance of living a Christ-like life and example before their friends and in many cases their parents. I think we need to realize that there is more than one elephant in the room and to say if we get the parents to fulfill their roles then our youth exodus problem is solved is both naive and wrong because I personally know of many young people whose parents were a good Christian example, but their kids still bolted for various reasons but most have told me the main reason was that they saw to many adults whose Christian example reaked with hypocrisy, "do as I say, but not as I do" was the main one.

Star2,

Then it is another believer's job to saddle up and disciple the parents and/or the children. It isn't an organizational issue, it is a matter of me doing my job with others and not looking to pawn it off on others.

Grace and Peace,
Jim

I think the battle ground may not be the church or homes, it is at the schools. Most of their time spent in learning is in their school compound. And I believe that the war cry should not be 'keeping them in church', but rather 'keeping up in their faith'.

Brother Greg Stier is right on!! I like this bold young Christian leader! After a week of sickening WillowCreek Youth Conferences with Brian McLaren, Dan Kimball and others; then Rob Bell and the other heretic Doug Paggett compromising the Gospel with pagan religions, it is good to read about a REAL BIBLICAL CHRISTIAN GREG STIER!!

First of all churches are to blame. I was a deacon for three years until I resigned in disgust. They cared more about building and then worrying how to pay the bills, than discipling adults. Sunday morning is like a country club, even if the true Bible is taught. And this is one of the best churches in town!!

You should see what the youth oriented ones are teaching! Half of all major churches in town are in WillowCreek and the other half are withering on the vine. Why? None of them are a praying church! The purpose drivel generation is coming out of High School and not grounded in Truth. Small wonder they will fall for any charismatic slick Elmer Gantry like politician who would not know truth if it fell on him!

How can parents disciple their children if they themselves are not disciples?

Problem is that people expect "the church" to disciple the people who make up the church. When we realize it is MY duty to disciple others and to be discipled myself, and that it is not "the church's" responsibility, we will have discipleship and maturation of the believers.

Grace and Peace,
Jim

I think the problem is with youth pastors who are too young. Our Y.P. isn't very mature and has no interest in building relationships with the parents or older saints in the church. Then again his relationships with the kids are pretty shallow too. Once upon a time I was a new Christian and would have liked to have the church help me grow and help me be a Prov. 22 parent while I was still on the "bottle" myself.

Maybe the answer lies with the parents?

Gasoline?

http://poleblog.polemos.net/2007/01/gasoline_04.html

Pro 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Psalm 127:3 "Children are a heritage from the Lord, a reward from him."
Deu 6:6-9 "And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.
Eph 6:4 "And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

This is not a suggestion! It is a duty.

We, as Christians, have a tremendous responsibility given to us when the Lord blesses us with a child. By doing so, He entrusts us with the responsibility of raising up that child in the way of the Lord and establishing early in his life, a foundation built upon Jesus Christ.

We are answerable to the Lord for how our children are raised.

It's folly to think that we can rightly entrust our children's education to strangers, much less those that would teach them the public school basics of moral relativism, religious pluralism and historical revisionism.

In as much as a pastor is responsible to God for his flock - parents are responsible to God for their children. What is needed is for more parents to take their duties more seriously instead of catering to that tongue in cheek excuse, "economic reasons" or "convenience".
UhHuh - try using that excuse before God when He asks you why your children did not follow in the faith of their fathers.

The problem stems from the parents being cold or luke-warm Christians. A hallmark of these folks is that they think that "going to church" is all that is required of them to "please God".

They fail to embrace the fact that daily fervent prayer and personal study and application of of the scriptures is how one grows in Christ. The Word of God is what feeds us, but for some reason these folks think that their soul can survive on a once a week meal delivered via a Sunday sermon! Some diet.
So they apply this same logic to their children's lives. They've delegated the spiritual training of their children to the Sunday school teacher for one hour, once a week - and then are mystified that their children behave no differently than the rest of the world!

A child is a blank slate. Parents, do you honestly believe that if that child receives only 1 hour per week of spiritual training and 100 hours of secular schooling, playing video games, watching tv, and hanging out with non-Christian friends, in between the few "quality moments" that they might get from you, that you're going to somehow raise up a child who loves the Lord?

Believer,

As a pastor and Mission Director, you have great influence to call believing parents to instruct their children. You can not get away from this clear Biblical admonition. We have lulled parents into believing that the youth minister, youth pastor or youth group is the primary source of discipling the next generation. Let's acknowledge the elephant in the room and call parents to their biblical responsibility.

If starting at home is the answer the church of future generations is done for. How can you expect it to start at home when the parent(s) could care less. I agree that many youth drop out because they were forced to attend church, but I believe just as many drop out because they are no longer being wined and dined, no more free pizza, no more camps or conferences, and so on. So the question is what is the common denominator between the two. What I have come to believe the issue is no sense of purpose and/or no commitment to that purpose and unfortunately many of these same youth don't see it in not only their peers, but in the adults in their church. Granted it would be great if kids could see that in their own parents, but if their not even seeing it the adults in their church why would they number one adopt it for their own lives and number two hang around a place where the adults aren't commited to the cause of Christ. As a pastor and now as a Director of Missions where I work with 28 churches I see that Satan is effectively using the tools of apathy as well as complacency to as the old song says keep our light under a bushel and until that change first and foremost from and in the pulpit and in the life of the church as well as the individual lives of the adult members than we can look forward to a continued exodus of our youth.

I'd have to disagree that discipline is going to win over the hearts of teens, particularly those who are determined to discover their own identity - and what teenager isn't? This is just an opinion, but I think the fact that teens leave the church as soon as they graduate highschool (which generally coincides with their "emancipation" from parental rule) demonstrates that they were only attending church because they had to. If they were attending church because they wanted to, I doubt that would have changed when they left home.

I believe the answer lies in teaching children how to think about things so that they come to their own conclusion for why they want to do something. In this way, they will become internally committed to their own choice.

As an illustration, Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D. theorized in his book "Influence", that "commitments are most effective when they are active, public, effortful, and viewed as internally motivated and not coerced."

*To support this, he performed a study with children testing both ideas. First he took children individually into a room and showed them a toy robot. He then told them that if they played with it, something bad would happen he then left the room. Out of 22 children, only one of them resisted the temptation to play with the robot.

Later he tried this experiment again with 22 different children. In this experiment, he brought them all into the room and taught them that it was wrong to play with the robot. (He does not say how.) A few weeks later he had a teacher bring the children individually into the room to take an exam. The teacher then left the room. This time almost 70% of children resisted the temptation to play with the toy.

While this study may not be completely conclusive, it illustrates the idea that strict discipline is most effective when the administrator of that discipline is present. I'm not arguing that discipline has no place, only that the problem of teens abandoning the church is probably the symptom of lack of committment to the church versus a lack of discipline.


* I don't have the the book handy at them moment so I'm repeating this information from memory. So if the numbers are a little off, please forgive me. I think that I have captured the spirit of the study.

Unfortunately churches aren't disciplining adults and parents, so they in turn aren't teaching their children... they majority of the kids that attend my youth group come from families that don't attend church... so we have to step in the parents role and disciple these teens... Stier's ministry helps with that, and has had a great impact on our students, who are now evangelizing there parents.

I agree Berean. It must start at home.

The problem with the youth leaving the faith is found in the fact they are not being discipled at home. If Brother Stier wants to have a real impact, he should call parents to disciple thier children and live out the faith found in Christ. The youth ministry approach has simply pushed parents to abdicate their responsibility.