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A Bridge Over Troubled Water

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By Rick Lawrence
10/28/2008

The so-called church dropout rate for Christian teenagers is a hot topic in youth ministry today. And
because it’s an alarming issue, it’s been a magnet for misinformation and half-truths for more than
three years now. 

About 18 months ago we published “Busting the Dropout Myth” by Tom Carpenter (March/April
2007)—the result of a challenge I’d thrown out to Christian college students at Bethel College. I promised to publish any well-researched article that could dispel or support the “fact” that nine out of 10 Christian high schoolers will drop out of church by the time they leave college

The so-called church dropout rate for Christian teenagers is a hot topic in youth ministry today. And
because it’s an alarming issue, it’s been a magnet for misinformation and half-truths for more than
three years now.

Tom took up the challenge, scouring existing research to peg the dropout rate at a much-less-apocolyptic 40 percent.

This is one of those vampire stats that just won’t die unless you kill it just so. In contrast to the much quoted 88 percent stat, Sam Rainer of LifeWay Research pegs it at 70 percent, and Dave Kinnaman of Barna Research cites 61 percent (though he told me that number is “probably too high”). Some say it doesn’t matter whether it’s 88 percent or 40 percent; it’s still a bad number. No question.

But numbers do matter because truth always matters. And that brings me to Tim Clydesdale, a sociology professor at The College of New Jersey and author of The First Year Out: Understanding American Teens After High School. In a riveting interview with Derek Melleby of the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding (cpyu.org), Clydesdale offered the most incisive response to the church dropout problem that I’ve heard. For six years Clydesdale gathered data on incoming freshmen, operating from a “false hunch” that assumed they’d be experiencing an intellectual and spiritual “awakening.” Instead, he heard very few talk about personal change.

“American teens take a highly practical view of their college education,” Clydesdale told Melleby, “prioritizing, like Americans as a whole, the management of everyday life...Mainstream American life has become a relentless work-spend-borrow-consume cycle that discourages all questioning or reflection, and teens [are] as caught up in this as adults are.”

The consumer cycle described by Clydesdale effectively marginalizes kids’ Christian faith—the tacit outcome is a belief that my faith in Christ is important, but not really important. It’s a planet in my solar system, but not the sun. Clydesdale says: “It seems that most Christian students want to keep their faith in a nice safe box: They attend church, they read the Bible and pray, but they largely pursue the same work-spend-borrow-consume lifestyle that their non-Christian peers do. The majority of Christian teens are content to sprinkle their suburban middle class aspirations with evangelical faith (like most adults do).

“I did find some Christian teens (say 10 to 25 percent) who are open to questioning whether these suburban aspirations represent the life of radical discipleship to which Jesus calls his followers. Such teens want to think deeply about their faith and engage it with the wider world. Unfortunately, few of [them] possess the mentorship that nurtures this sort of faith development, and without it, the tug of work-spend-borrow-consume may...prevail.”

Clydesdale says his biggest surprise was how eagerly these kids responded when an adult listened well to them. He says, “Teens are drowning in competing claims for allegiance, and no one, it seems, is providing [them] the time and space to sort through all of this.”

He adds: “Those who ‘walked away’ from their faith during college made the decision...long before their college years—they just waited for the freedom of college to enact that choice...These teens reported having important questions regarding faith during early adolescence (12 to 14 years old) that were ignored by their parents or pastors rather than taken seriously and engaged thoughtfully.”

He ends his interview with Melleby with a stinging summation (“Faithful are the wounds of a friend...” Proverbs 27:6): “Sadly, most youth ministries are long on fun and fluff and short on listening and thoughtful engagement. The former produces a million paper boats; the latter produces a handful of seaworthy ships. Launching a million paper boats is an amazing spectacle on a clear summer day, but only a ship can weather storms and cross oceans.” n

Rick has been editor of Group Magazine for 20 years. You can contact him at rlawrence@group
.com. And you can get a copy of his book Jesus-Centered Youth Ministry or his 10-week curriculum In Pursuit of Jesus: Stepping Off the Beaten Path in our store.

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Parents should know how to control their wild teens. They need proper guidance to bring up there troubled teens.

Kaira 4:08:42pm on 8/30/2009

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Boot camps provide various excitement and adventurous programs such as wilderness programs for teenagers . The main aim of the camp is to provide all the essential and training and learning programs to enhance the skills of troubled teens. http://www.strugglingteen.net/

struggling teens 3:02:48am on 2/20/2009

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What I got from this article is simply that youth need more time invested in them via listening or creating an atmosphere where they think/discuss share with you about thier spiritual journey. This may mean we need to be more focused on asking the tough questions, and not being afraid to let them know we're interested in the tough stuff going on in thier lives. I know my ministry is TOO BUSY with activities, and not laden with alot of time for listening. I'm working to turn that around. Secondly, the 18-25 gap, as discussed below, could be partly to do with our teens going away to college, finding discipleship there in some form. We have to be confident that if we have invested our selves in the hearts of our teens, we have done our job and we trust the Holy Spirit who is at work within them to do His job while their away. Our churches, then, need to do a better job reaching out to the 18-25's that are appearing within our midst from other places... coming to our town to go to college, moving here because of jobs, whatever. I don't feel there are alot of CHURCHES who do much with this age range (there are alot of campus ministries). That's the sad thing, because its such a pivotal time in thier lives (maybe even more so than the teen years.)

Harrison 8:12:02am on 12/03/2008

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Unfortunately, here in South Africa it's a totally different "kettle of fish" (pardon the pun). We have the same major concerns, especially relating to the disappearing youth in our churches and I've chatted to most of my church district youth groups and they've found the stats to be totally different - depending on which side of the city you live - where as soon as they get to tertiary education (depending on which one that is) you can get hooked on a good Christian youth group and your faith and grow stronger than in the church you grew up in, versus others feel more comfortable with something they're familiar with. Different strokes for different folks;0). The major issue in my church is that most of our youth disappear after they have become confirmed, because their parents want them to be confirmed and then only come back to their family church when that have a baby to be baptised (that black whole of 18 - 25 years is like the dark ages). For us it's like the parents leave theit kids to do their own thing after they're confirmed, which is usually the same freedom opportunity you find with your American teens going off to colleage. My question is: How do we bring/ draw them back of their own free will to a walk with Christ during those dark ageas of 18 - 25 years? I agree with you Dan, we get the warning bells, but very little solutions coming out of it that we can apply effectively. In our work it's easier said than done - no matter where you live.

Joann 8:11:21am on 11/12/2008

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There are many schools for struggling teens where they can live and learn. They offer many educative programs for them. They also offer various options for many exploited young and also for those teenagers who could not find proper attention from their parents. http://www.teenageproblems.net/

Troubled Teens 1:11:56am on 11/08/2008

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I wish there were better ways to 1.Put these stats into perspective. and 2.Effectively communicate this to our youth groups and volunteers. I still wonder why 18-25 is such a black hole for so many places.

John Harvey 9:11:37am on 11/06/2008

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I was just at NYWC Pittsburgh, and I sat through a seminar on "MEGA trends affecting student ministry" by Paul Turner, a Lifeway guy, and he started out with the dissappearance of the 18-24 year old from church. I have always felt like I have heard these high numbered stats of students leaving church after they graduate but to me there are a lot of things that come in to play and I am always curious to see how the research looks at those variables. Are they going away to college, plugging in to campus ministry, do they return to there city or move to a different city after college. Do they leave there faith all together or find there own church that isn't there parents? So many questions and I never feel like I get answers. Just alarms and bells and people telling me I need to do better job of ministering to our students because right now I'm failling!!

Dan 1:11:55pm on 11/05/2008

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are you saying that 9 out of every 10 high school student will not attend church by the time they reach college, or are you saying that 9 out of ten will not attend church when they graduate from college.

Rache Stanley 5:11:05pm on 11/02/2008

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