By now the shocking numbers are almost numbing. Depending on whose statistics you believe, anywhere between 60 and 90% of young people currently attending an evangelical church will leave once they hit college. Leave…and never come back. But why?
Some people say it's our secular environment—now almost hostile to Christianity. Some say it's the lack of programs for kids at church…or the quality of the preaching. It is my contention that there are a whole lot fewer reasons than are currently being looked at. In fact, I think the biggest factor is a whole lot closer to home. It's parents. Us.
In too many homes church is a Sunday thing, but not a Monday thing. Like Maybelline make-up, you put it on Sunday morning but wash it off by nightfall. Come Monday, parents who on Sunday were raising their hands in worship, are often clicking their mouses to porn sites. Or watching garbage on TV. Or playing fast and loose with the IRS.
Though they claim to be just like Christ, too many moms and dads are just like the world—an observation not lost on our kids. Rather than a spiritual legacy, we pass on a spiritual fallacy. So they've simply decided to skip the pretense.
Now the truth is, there are boat loads of parents who are really doing things right. God-fearing Moms and Dads who practice what they preach, pray on their knees, and are truly seeking the God of Israel. But if there are boatloads of these, we must also acknowledge there are fleets full of Titanics captained by parents charting courses of self-fulfillment and ruderless Christianity.
There's no need to wonder at the numbers. But we SHOULD wonder what will it take for followers of Jesus…to follow Jesus.