by
Abigail Lucas
Reflection Paper
LIBERTY UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF DIVINTY
YOUT 201-001
Survey of Youth Ministries
Submitted to Dr. Allen Hollie
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Amongst many other issues in today’s church culture, one of the biggest issues churches
are seeing is within the college aged students. Many college aged students ranging from ages
eighteen to twenty-two are no longer attending church and there is a severe age gap developing
where they used to be. Who is to blame for this? Why, is it this specific age group? How is this
impacting the church as a whole? Let’s dive deeper into this topic and understand the reason as
to why these things keep arising.
There is a very specific age group of people who are not attending church and that is the
college aged students. Now, the college aged adults are not quite facing things like families or
full-time jobs yet, but they are some of the busiest you will come across. College adults are
taking eighteen credits, friendships, working part-time, internships, sports, clubs, relationships,
meetings, and studying. According to research, seventy to eighty eight percent of former students
in youth ministry are dropping out in their college years. A big reason being their schedules. As I
just named off some big things that keep college students busy, most of the time church is not as
high on their priority list. It is also hard when college students grew up in youth ministry and are
thrown into a secular setting at college. They start to meet people that will influence them to
parties, drinking, smoking, and doing stupid things. As college students are also making new
friends, they are also more concerned about what their friends will think about them if they start
attending church.
Another big reason as to why, is parents and youth ministries. The age of teenagers when they
are in youth ministry is one of the most crucial times in their lives. At this age, you learn to think
for yourself, find your own friends, develop a personality of your own, and understand things to
a much deeper level. Because of this crucial time in a teenager’s life, the church and parents are
not helping their teenagers develop an authentic faith of their own. Teenagers tend to be curios
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and when they are questioning their faith and wanting to know more, it is key for parents and the
church to come alongside them and help them with this curiosity. If a teenager is not firmly
grounded in their faith in the teenage years, how can you expect them to carry it out when they
are adults? If a teenager is not taught to depend on Christ with everything in them, how are they
supposed to put that into practice while they are in college. I am a very fortunate girl; I have
incredible parents who love me and helped me develop a relationship with Christ at a young age.
They also got me invested in church at a young age and help me grow a love for student ministry.
Because of my parent’s encouragement with not only my relationship in Christ but also my
student ministry at church, I am now a college student Christian who is going into ministry.
Because my parents and youth pastor were willing to invest in me, I will not be one of the
college students who no longer attends church in their college years.
How does this affect the church as a whole? When new people are coming into church for the
first time and look around and only see small children and older adults, there is an issue. If you
want to successfully run a church, you need diversity in ages and young adults will not want to
attend church if there are no other young adults present. It is also a church-wide issue if youth
ministries are not performing to the best of their ability. Teenagers will not want to attend church
and their parents will stop coming along with them if the student ministry is missing the mark on
teenagers. In order to run a good youth ministry, you need to be investing in students and helping
them realize that they can have a personal relationship with Jesus. If youth pastors are not taking
the time to truly pour Christ into students and is just focusing on the fun or money, then the
youth ministry is not doing its job. Youth Ministries are truly such a blessing in many people’s
lives but, if you are not doing it right it could have long-term effects on students which is well
demonstrated through our reading.
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The best way to tackle this situation and fix it, is to first self-evaluate your student ministry
and your motives behind running it. Are you truly investing in students or just here because it
looks good on you.? Are you speaking truth to students or are you just worried about the fun they
are having? Are you loving students to the best of your ability or are you worrying about your
paycheck that is coming next Friday? Are you trying to understand the mind of teenagers or are
you making assumptions based on stereotypes? These are all good questions to ask yourself daily
when working in student ministry. Second, is to help parents to be Godly examples in their
relationship with Christ. The church should actively be in community with parents and adults to
help bring up a generation of God-loving Christians. Parents cannot do it on their own and
churches should come alongside parents with helping their teenagers understand who God is. If
churches would just reach out to parents in support and love there would be a lot less college
students who no longer attend church on Sunday mornings. One final way that we as the church
can help fix this issue, is by praying for all of the teenagers daily. By praying for them and
uplifting them, we can help them know that they are not alone and that they matter in a world
that tells them otherwise.
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