We similarly cannot be surprised when young people do not become believers when their parents don’t teach them the gospel at home and our Sunday school programmes focus more on morals, or nice lessons, than they do on the Christ and his gospel. If our children never hear about sin and the means of salvation, we can hardly be surprised if they never see a need to repent, come to Christ and submit to his lordship. If they see no need for all of that, we can hardly be surprised if they see no value in the church.

When churches find a dearth of young people in the congregation, it is never long before questions start being asked. The questions become even more pointed when children, who otherwise seemed engaged, drift off when they become teenagers.

Were there not enough programmes available for them? Were they isolated from their peers? Did we just not pay them enough attention? The hand-wringing begins and the cries of ‘won’t somebody please think of the children?’ go up.

The fact is however, the lure of the world is as great among adults as it is teenagers. Nor do teenagers leave the church because there are not enough programmes for them. At best, in certain cases, young people may leave your church and begin attending another one in which they feel they might be better served. This doesn’t account for why they drift off altogether.

The reality is that the number one reason young people drift off from the church is because they are not believers. The reality is that the number one reason young people drift off from the church is because they are not believers. It is as simple as that. They have not come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ nor entered into a personal relationship with him. They either do not understand the gospel or they know it well enough and have decided they don’t want it. In either case, they leave the church because they never came to faith.

The obvious answer

When we understand this, the issue is brought into sharp relief. The main reason teenagers drift away from the church, just like adults, is because they are not real Christians and never came to faith in Christ. The answer to how to stop them leaving then, becomes more obvious. It rests in teaching our young people the gospel and praying that Christ will effect in them a positive response.

Coupled to this, we must recognise where the responsibility for teaching and training our children lies. Contrary to popular belief, it does not lie with the pastor, elders or Sunday school teachers. Whilst each of these people will be held accountable for what they teach, they are not charged with the spiritual welfare of your children.

Ephesians 6:4 makes clear that it is fathers who are responsible for teaching and training their children in the Lord. Deuteronomy 6:6-9 puts it this way, ‘These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates’.

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