Why trying to accommodate our youth is killing the church...and what to do about it

In the world of the internet the way to get something across is with snazzy enumeration. The simpler the better. It's hard to make a well-rounded argument when the average reader will click away by the end of this sentence if they're not already interested. In this environment it's impossible not to oversimplify incredibly complex issues by suggesting that entire movements can be fixed if only we realize these simple 3, 5 or 10 steps. It's hardly ever that simple.

Case and point: the decline of young people in the church. I just read a thoughtful blog post on the Top 10 Reasons our Kids Leave Church. I mean it when I say that this was well-written and I agree with just about all of it. Many churches try too hard to be relevant (#10), make church about entertainment (#9), dumb down the message and never allow kids to ask questions (#8 and #7 and #3), elevate feelings above faith (#6 and #4), water down the purpose of church to something like "community" (#5), suggest morality is our primary mission  (#2) and create a pragmatic, self-serving gospel (#1). All of this is good to point out, and I bet the casual Christian would never have realized that part of what makes church attractive in the short-term are things that also make it unappealing in the long run.

But the problem is that I am part of a mainline denomination that has many of the exact opposite problems and we, too, have a tremendous amount of trouble with young people leaving the church. The implication of the blog post was that, if we stop doing these things, our young people will come back, or at the very least the leaks will be fixed.

This is simply not true.

Here's the sad fact: little that we do is going to change the tides. All we can do is to stop trying so hard. Being inauthentic is something that young people and old people alike can sniff out. If you're doing something and your only purpose is to be more attractive to young people, stop it. Instead, do what is your mission; not your business plan. You don't need to accommodate youth; you need to give them the opportunity to be a part of something meaningful. Only then will we allow God to do whatever God is going to do.

I have no idea what God is going to do with his church if we ever got out of the way, but I have to believe it is better than the piecemeal fixes we have been effecting. So, get back to basics. Preach. Teach. Forgive. That's enough. I'm not sure if will bring back those who have left, but I know it will not sink the ship and that's a place to start.