Blood Soaked Youth Ministry

We've all heard the stats i suppose, about teenagers who grow up in church, go to college, and then never darken the door of the church ever again. Teens who grow up in youth choir, at camps, on activities, and now spend their Sunday mornings sleeping off the night before.

We've heard the stats, and though i struggle to believe that the number really is as high as the 70-80% i've heard quoted (what is it about evangelicalism and a love for negative statistics?) it's obviously a problem. 

What causes that problem? I guess there are a couple of obvious ones. Firstly, if your teen grows up in a teen centric environment, if they are always entertained and never asked to serve, always eating pizza and never studying the Bible, of course it's going to be a rue awakening when they go to church at 19 and suddenly they're treated like an adult. Of course they're going to be surprised when the plate in question is for them to give, not to take another piece of cake off. So there's that. The second is like the first. Maybe the majority of our 'church kids' just aren't getting saved. Maybe the sickness is in the youth group, not the frat house.

Both of those and more are part of the problem, but you know what i think a big, and overlooked problem is? I'm so glad you asked.

We've never taught our teenagers to sin. 

Let me explain. If our teens grow up in a world where they never fail, guess what they're going to equate Christianity with? Not failing. And when they fail at college, anywhere on the scale from fornicating to...whatever is on the other end of that scale, they're not going to know what to do with that failure. They've got no answer to the 'how're you going to go to church now?' question, so they quit.

If we teach young people that Christianity equals perfection, of course they're going to leave the church when they fail. Of course their seared conscience is going to keep them out of the Bible. They've sinned, how can they approach a holy God now?

This is the burden of the book of Hebrews. The blood of bulls and goats never changed a man's heart, never eased a seared conscience, never assured man of his salvation. But the blood of Jesus can and does. Hebrews 9:14 promises that the blood of Christ cleanses our conscience so that we can once more serve Christ. This is what our teenagers need as they go to college. A blood soaked youth ministry. We can teach five steps to a better recess when we run out of Gospel. We can fire up the attractional smoke machine and rock band when the blood of Jesus stops being relevant.

We need to be honest about sin. I sin, you sin, and our good church kids sin. Blood talk only makes sense in the light of sin talk. And it's blood talk, and only blood talk, that will grow faithful teenagers into faithful adults.