Ordinary Eve
Why do teenagers leave church?
We all know the pattern - children, who seemed happy and fulfilled at Sunday school, pull out of church when they hit their teens. Jesus is often put on the shelf perhaps because he doesnt seem to have any relevance to their everyday lives. As a church youth leader, I have a few observations and hopefully some suggestions for parents and churches worried by this trend.
Psychologists state that the two primary developmental tasks of adolescence are identity and autonomy. If we are going to say anything of relevance to teenagers we need to address these two needs head on.
Identity
Emotional changes mean that, more than any other age group, adolescents need recognition, acceptance and opportunities to contribute. Young people need to be valued and to know that they have a role in church and are not just considered to be the church of tomorrow. A friends two teenage daughters recently left the church that their parents attend because, although there were other young people there, they felt they were not really treated as part of the church. They have moved to another fellowship where they feel that the adults there genuinely like them and are interested in them.
In addition, young people find safety in numbers. They gain security from being with people who are going through the same physical, social and emotional changes. They need Christian friends of their own at church if they are to stay at that church. What the group thinks and does is very important. When you ask a young person if they want to come to an event, the first question they ask is Who else is going?.
So the Church needs to engage with and employ youth culture - the means by which teenagers both explore and define themselves.
Opinion is divided about where youth culture originates. Some think that it has been invented by the media and that young people are being told how to act and what values to hold by big businesses, who are trying to market products specifically to them (music, clothes, ring tones etc) . Marketeers play on their sense of being distinctive from older generations in order to make money out of them.
Others would say that youth culture is generated by young people themselves, as they create their own values, beliefs and practices in order to establish identity and meaning. But whether you think youth culture is an inconsequential fad or a powerful expressive force, you cannot deny that it exists. Just look at the effort a teenager will put into decorating their bedroom, the amount of time they spend with their peers, the musical genres that they ally themselves to, and the language they speak.
Without a willingness to engage in the world that young people inhabit the Church is likely to come across as out of date or worse irrelevant. In which case who could blame young people for leaving?
Autonomy
Adolescents will question the norms and values of their parents in order to form their own. Even Jesus exasperated his parents and appeared very inconsiderate when he stayed behind in the Temple in Jerusalem aged 12 (Luke, chap. 2). Young people, like Jesus, need opportunities to discuss and debate. They need to be involved in decision-making in church/ youth club and they need to know that their opinions are being heard and taken into account. Worship events like The Rush in Sudbury (Essex) are organised and led by young people give the chance to be involved in something which isn't run to someone else's agenda.
Sometimes the search for autonomy can be expressed by rebellion against parents and teachers. The key is for young people not to see church as something they need to rebel from too.
Where from here?
Understanding these two needs might help us to formulate a strategy for keeping young people interested in Church.
