US Evangelicals fear the loss of their teenagers

Surfing & blogging today, I found a very interesting article published a couple of days ago at the New York Times telling how concerned are some Evangelicals in the US about their teenagers "abandoning their faith in droves". The article shows how a concerned youth ministry has been organising music concerts for teenagers, with a relative success.

Some interesting quotes:

Genuine alarm can be heard from Christian teenagers and youth pastors, who say they cannot compete against a pervasive culture of cynicism about religion, and the casual “hooking up” approach to sex so pervasive on MTV, on Web sites for teenagers and in hip-hop, rap and rock music. Divorced parents and dysfunctional families also lead some teenagers to avoid church entirely or to drift away.

Over and over in interviews, evangelical teenagers said they felt like a tiny, beleaguered minority in their schools and neighborhoods. They said they often felt alone in their struggles to live by their “Biblical values” by avoiding casual sex, risqué music and videos, Internet pornography, alcohol and drugs.

I wonder what the concept of "Biblical values" is ... When I became Christian as a teenager, the sub-cultural rules that were understood as "Biblical values" were similar: Do not dance, do not drink alcohol, do not smoke, do not hav a girlfriend. It took me some years to realise that the Kingdom lifestyle was far beyond that.

Anyway, this makes me think of what kind of message are we addressing to the adolescents in Church. Because if many are leaving is simply because the Church's language and practice is not anymore relevant to their actual needs. When I became Christian, the message was "rebel" since we had to rebel against the official church system and dare to be "true Christians" by committing to a relationship with Jesus-Christ. I think of the impact that some youth movements, playing rock music for worship had ... it was our kind of music being used for God's Kingdom ... Many leaders those days may have been shocked, but thanks God they allowed their youth to express themselves in an alternative way.

Another quote:

The phenomenon may not be that young evangelicals are abandoning their faith, but that they are abandoning the institutional church, said Lauren Sandler, author of “Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement” (Viking, 2006). Ms. Sandler, who calls herself a secular liberal, said she found the movement frighteningly robust.

“This generation is not about church,” said Ms. Sandler. “They always say, ‘We take our faith outside the four walls.’ For a lot of young evangelicals, church is a rock festival, or a skate park or hanging out in someone’s basement.”

Contradicting the sense of isolation expressed by some evangelical teenagers, Ms. Sandler said, “I met plenty of kids who told me over and over that if you’re not Christian in your high school, you’re not cool — kids with Mohawks, with indie rock bands who feel peer pressure to be Christian.”

This part of the article brings light to those who want to see. I would think of the prayer of Jesus

My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. (John 17.15-19)

The Gospel is for people living in this world, not elsewhere, living a different lifestyle and being protected from the evil one while doing so. These kids understood probably that they are here to be instruments of redemption for all disciplines (arts, music, sports, education, academy, etc.) and models of a spring of living waters in a world of death and violence. A challenge is to show through our lives that something different is possible.

The last quotation I want to make from the article:

The reality is, when it comes to organizing youth, evangelical Christians are the envy of Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants and Jews, said Christian Smith, a professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame

Probably because the unchanging message of Jesus is still preached by Evangelicals. Probably because amongst Evangelicals, despite the political agenda of some of their US leaders, there is still a sense of reformation, a sense of being guided by the Holy Spirit to be wise and harmless at the same time. Probably because some Christians live their faith on a daily basis. Adolescents and young adults need integrity not masks. This statement is valid for the developed world and the developing one. I often move frome one side of the globe to the other, and feel similar Church issues though. Shouldn't we think more about responding to the needs as Jesus would do? BTW The picture above shows a youth worship group in South Africa in 2005.

The following are links to other sites dealing with similar issues.
On youth and faith and On Emergent.