Youth Ministry Stats

Andrew Hamilton who often replies to posts I make (thanks Hamo!) posted this on his blog

Here are some stats I am sure you have heard:

1. 80% of young people make a 'decision for Christ' before the age of 18 therefore this is where we ought to invest a huge amount of our resources. I completely agree that this is a time when people are usually most open and receptive to new ideas.

2. Of those young people who make 'decisions for Christ' around 80% will dump their faith altogether when they get a car, go to Uni and are exposed to the world outside of the Christian youth scene.

Hmmm what is going on here?

These 2 often quoted stats got Hamo thinking his full post is here (includes loads of thoughtful replies), has a follow up post here and a really funny post that reminds me of a stand up routine I did at a church gathering is here (The stand up routine resulted in an audience half horrified and half in stitches the two fuelling off each other). I'm not sure how accurate they are but anecdotal evidence would suggest they are not far of the mark.

These two quotes get close to the heart of what is wrong with many churches. I'll now break down and analyse these quotes too show you what I think they actually mean.

1.a. 80% of young people make a 'decision for Christ' before the age of 18

Now this statistic could either be reflective of (a) importnat life decisions and values are made by people before the age of 18 (b) the church is in almost no way attractive to people over the age of 18. I don't think it would be shocking take to say that most adults above the age of 30 do not make every important life decision or value before the age of 18. Before the age of 18 is when we start to make life and value decisions and these values and decisions get refined or thrown away and replaced so that they are congruent with what we experience in life. That "80% of young people make a 'decision for Christ' before the age of 18" I think reflects more upon what church's tell young people about Xy and how it fits with life rather than the nature of people once they turn 18.

1.b. therefore this is where we ought to invest a huge amount of our resources.

Now this is starting to get to the heart of what is important, recruiting people. Purely and simply the thought here is that resources should be used to expand the numbers in the pews, everything else is secondary. This accounts for so little of the richness of what it means to be Xn. the deatils of which I won't go into now. (Perhaps this might be the basis of some later posts.)

1.c. I completely agree that this is a time when people are usually most open and receptive to new ideas.

It is true that people below the age of 18 are receptive to new ideas. It is also true that people with less life experience and knowledge will be less likely to be critical of these new ideas and that younger people, in general, have less life experience and knowledge. Then, as I mentioned in 1.a, decisions and values we make when we are young get refined or thrown away and replaced when they are no longer congruent with what we experience in life.

2. Of those young people who make 'decisions for Christ' around 80% will dump their faith altogether when they get a car, go to Uni and are exposed to 'the world' outside of the Christian youth scene.

Put simply this statistic shows how obvious it is that the robustness of the faith churches impart to young people is so flimsy that it doesn't not even stand up to a young person's first major life change.

In Conclusion what we have is a situation much like that if a band that decides to put all of its resources into marketing their music to teenagers. They almost spend no time trying to make good music just marketing it to teenagers. You can easily picture exactly what this music will be like, and you would be quite able to understand why the band’s popularity with teenagers will not translate into sustained popularity with those same people once they are older. This is exactly what we are doing with Youth Ministry. What we need to do is play good music.