The evil liberals at The New York Times are dissing the evangelicals again.

Evangelicals Fear the Loss of Their Teenagers

This article is really making the rounds on blogs that consider things churchy and otherwise. Having spent a number of years working in youth ministry I’ve got some thoughts on this issue.

The first is why all the fear? As with all things evangelical these days the fear-mongers seem to be out in full force. They were running rampant when I was in the evangelical church and the cries became more shrill after 9/11. The culture wars are being won by the heathens and pagans. As I began to look around with a more objective lens, I saw that the so-called culture wars were being fought on one side. No one else was fighting. The same goes for some of the statistics mentioned in this article such as the 4 percent solution. This begs the question 4 percent of what? What does that statement mean … Bible-believing? How is it defined? How does one live out those tenets?

When we’re talking about the next generation using narrowly defined texts seems to severly limit the number of those who will follow in our footsteps. Having made a hobby of history throughout my life, it seems that each generation likes to do this. It gives them a sense of self-importance. A sense of legacy that will not be lived up to. “No one can do what we did so it will die with us,” if you will. We like to think we’re the only ones who can carry the banner and no one will be available to pick it up for us.

Having said all of that, I believe that this article does indeed indict youth ministry in this country. It does so quite fairly. I believe we are raising children in our churches to believe some very backward ideas about what church is and how they should respond to it and behave within it. I think that the emerging church/conversation is on the verge of changing some of those ideas. But it’s going to take some radically different solutions to how we view and raise children within the context of the Body of Christ to swing the pendulum in a different direction. Here’s the quote that really caught my eye:

Apparently, the strategy can show results. In Chicago, Eric Soto said he returned from a stadium event in Detroit in the spring to find that other teenagers in the hallways were also wearing “Acquire the Fire” T-shirts.

“You were there? You’re a Christian?” he said the young people would say to one another. “The fire doesn’t die once you leave the stadium. But it’s a challenge to keep it burning.”

It’s the final two paragraphs in the article. It caught my eye for a couple of reasons; they are all wrapped in together so I’ll try to unwrap them in a logical manner.

We’re studying the Jewish holidays at my church this year. I’ve been given the lead on doing the research to find the theology behind all of them. So we are not simply finding the rituals and copying them; we’re diving into the theology and re-inventing it for our church to find out how Jesus might have reimagined it for the people of his day. It’s been a joy for my researcher’s heart and lead me down some wonderful paths. I am discovering quite a bit of marvelous synchronicity in the Jewish faith. Most of the holidays have a yin and a yang (for lack of a better term).
Today we celebrated Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths) a few days early by Jewish reckoning. As best I understand it, Sukkot celebrates the tension between storing up the harvest one has just brought in and the daily reliance upon God for survival modelled by the Israelites during their 40 years in the desert. Day in and day out they harvested manna, not too much though or it would rot and become infested with maggots. This is contradictory to the philosophy of farming and harvesting crops to tide a family and community over through not just one winter, but potentially several winters.

It is said that Sukkot is the epilogue for Passover. That Passover celebrates faith and Sukkot celebrates faithfulness. Sukkot is the holiday that celebrates 14,600 days and nights in the desert … 14,600 raising of the booths and lowering as well. Gritty, hasty lunches. Children whining, “Manna aaagggain. We just had that last night.” It celebrates perserverance and tenacity. It is the holiday for marathoners, quilters, artists, musicians, mothers, fathers, lawyers, doctors, programmers, athletes, and in short anyone who believes that s/he can methodically move a mountain one rock at a time.

Paradoxically, I believe this is where we are selling our children short. If we sell them a faith that is all about mountaintops and Passover and fail to help them through to the celebration of Sukkot we are not helping them to become fully fledged adults who are ready to take on life. Adults need the occasional Passover, but mostly we know that life is about Sukkot; it’s putting one foot in front of the other. It’s not about keeping a whole fire burning, but about keeping the ember from dying.

I believe the whole idea of youth ministry and youth group needs to be reimagined. Currently we segregate the youth and give them fun and games church until they are 18 or perhaps 21. Then we deem that they are old enough to be “with the adults.” This they find boring (as would I if I’d been in youth ministry for my whole life). Not surprisingly, they leave the church in droves, because church is no longer fun, no longer a mountain top and no one has given them any tools for remaining there. There has to be some middle ground between creating segregated youth and adult church systems and fully integrated systems which is, admittedly, not wholly appropriate for teens.

Preparing for this service, as for all of the Jewish holidays, has forced me to think and then rethink many of my unspoken and often unacknowledged assumptions about my faith, my faith practices and their roots. This looking backwards for thousands of years has also given me hope to look forward. The coming generations will have faith. It may not look like mine. Future generations may not remain in organized church systems; they may reimagine church entirely. But I’ve found a way to look beyond the fear and see that the ways of faith are as diverse as the people on this planet. It’s a beautiful thing!