I have seen a lot of posts recently about how the church is failing young people. It is mostly implied, but sometimes stated explicitly that the reason so many young people are falling away from the faith (and, by implication, the church) is entirely down to the church not putting on a good enough programme or not employing youth leaders and such like.
Let’s think about this for a minute …
A week has 168 hours
Normally 8 hours sleep a night would reduce that to 112 hours. Given that teenagers sleep, well longer, let’s say 10 hours sleep a day which would reduce that to 98 hours.
Even if your children DO go to church, typically they will attend at most 2 hours Sunday morning, 2 hours Sunday evening, and a mid-week group 2 hours. 6 hours a week under the care of a church would not be uncommon for ALREADY COMMITTED church kids.
What about the rest of the time? – the other 92 hours a week?
If they are not home schooled, most would spend 7 hours a day at school which teaches a secular and often godless ANTI – christian ideology – 35 hours a week which is very nearly 6 times as long as time spent in church. School attendance is not a choice for children in the public education system.
Then the rest of the week is spent hanging out with friends, time with parents, watching the TV, gaming on the computer and such like.
6 hours at church against 35 hours at school AND the rest of their time spent in other things like the family environment, TV, social media and peers – what do YOU think is REALLY influencing your kids?
AND, bluntly, responsibility for bringing the next generation to faith does NOT rest with the church, it rests with parents – and with fathers in particular.
It’s not the fault of the church that your son/daughter has rejected the gospel – if you want to challenge someone about the state of your children – look in a mirror.