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USA Today Article on the Decline of Youth Ministry
I’ve enjoyed Marko’s post on the now-infamous USA Today article on the decline of youth ministry as we know it. Here’s a clip of the original editorial content that has spurred on some interesting reactions by youth pastors around the country:
“Bye-bye church. We’re busy.” That’s the message teens are giving churches today.Only about one in four teens now participate in church youth groups, considered the hallmark of involvement; numbers have been flat since 1999. Other measures of religiosity — prayer, Bible reading and going to church — lag as well, according to Barna Group, a Ventura, Calif., evangelical research company. This all has churches canceling their summer teen camps and youth pastors looking worriedly toward the fall, when school-year youth groups kick in.
“Talking to God may be losing out to Facebook,” says Barna president David Kinnaman.
“Sweet 16 is not a sweet spot for churches. It’s the age teens typically drop out,” says Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville, which found the turning point in a study of church dropouts. “A decade ago teens were coming to church youth group to play, coming for the entertainment, coming for the pizza. They’re not even coming for the pizza anymore. They say, ‘We don’t see the church as relevant, as meeting our needs or where we need to be today.’ “
I think they’re are quite a few potentially valid responses and perspectives to this article:
- Our youth ministry numbers are up. The whole thing is bogus!
- Our youth ministry numbers are down. I have a valid excuse when the elders pin me down next time!
- Really? Facebook is the reason students don’t do to church anymore? Wow.
- Yes! What can youth ministry do to become relevant again?
- What’s wrong with a little pizza every now and then?
- What are we doing to go after lost sheep?
- Are camps truly a thing of the past?
- How is your youth ministry known/positioned in your community?
- So go the adults, so go the youth ministry.
- What can we do to streamline our youth ministry to fit into the busyness?
- USA Today’s readership is down, so they’re dragging everyone else down with them.
- If the students are on Facebook, are we?
- Does Barna know what they’re talking about anymore?
So … let’s hear what you think. What’s your response after you read the whole article on USA Today?
JG
View More: facebook, leadership, summer camp, summer ministry
Hey Josh,
I read the USA today article, and I also went back and read the actual research data from Barna. I wrote a whole blog post on this at http://billnance.org/2010/08/13/not-so-fast-my-friends/ but I thought I’d chime in here as well. Basically, if you look at the research, the numbers aren’t as bad as the article paints it. The true numbers are 50% of teens attend church, 40% attend youth group, 30% attend SS, and 25% attend small groups. What the author did was take the worst number and extrapolate it to the whole population. Also, in the article they say that the numbers over the last decade were “flat”. Thats just a very negative way of stating that they were stable – not much growth up or shrink down. So, I do not know where they got the “Teens are leaving youth group thing.” Essentially, much hype, no substance to the article (ironically, what the author was accusing Youth Ministry of)