When young people attend your church, please don't take them for granted. There will come a time when they will not and there is nothing we can do. In the "western church", young people generally do not attend church, "church is for the old" (The Asians are slowly catching up to this trend). The church has not found a way to penetrate their culture and be relevant, mostly the church is still in denial that they are fine. But look, when the church does not speak the good news into the society, there is really no hope for generations after generations of young people who will have no moral or spiritual grounds to stand against sin and evil. Drugs, sexual liberalism, alcoholism, decay in self respect and respect of others...WHY NOT?
I know there are churches where the vestry (PCC) just spend most of their time complaining and grumbling against the young people of the church. If only you can see how precious are these individuals who still find a reason to come to church. Every minute a young person spend in a church is extremely precious. Many don't want to come, and if we keep ignoring those who do, we inevitably sign the death certificate of the church for both today and the future.
Today, even the adults who had proper "church upbringing" don't go to church because church didn't really mean anything when they did go. The church was more occupied in matters of "culture", rituals and polity. It is alright to have those things in the church but not at the expense of people and families. There are many crying over relational issues, financial issues, moral issues and even spiritual issues, what are we saying when we ignore them? We don't care!
The important question for the church is, what should we be doing as a church? What is the direction we should be taking as a goal/vision? What is essentially the biblical mandate for the purpose of a church? many of our churches today, are just concerned about being successful as an organisation or a business. Let us not forget that our business is "Kingdom business".
Remember, that worldly measures of success mean nothing, we are to look at things above and not earthly as the bible says. If the church of today looks at itself as an organisation and business, we will fail to look at people as God would want us to. People in our society today are dying both in their spiritual lives and earthly lives. Spiritual decay, inevitably leads to social decay. If we are not concerned about this, the church has lost its purpose and soon closing of churches as in the west will be a norm throughout the world.
I don't have all the answers but I feel so compelled to look for them in this matter, will you join me? Having said all these, I do acknowledge the small remnant of ministers and churches who are doing a good job. We should look for them and learn from them! My comments are not meant to be judgmental but as "food for thought", for I am also in the same journey.
