Thoughts On Retaining Young People In The Lord's Church

Brother Stan Mitchell, one of the writers for Forthright Magazine has written a very thought-provoking article entitled, "Where Have All The Young People Gone?" In his good article, brother Mitchell addresses the issue of why our young people are leaving the Lord's church, by asking the following questions:

"Could it be that many young people want substance in the preaching and teaching they hear? Could it be they want the hymns they sing to carry distinct biblical teaching? Our temptation is to water down the content of our worship in our desperate attempt to keep them; could it be that we should be nourishing them with solid food, with the richest spiritual nutrition there is, the word of God?"

I believe brother Mitchell has hit the proverbial nail on the head, when he talks about the fact that today's young people are wanting "substance" in the preaching and teaching they hear. When I and a co-teacher were teaching a high school class back in the 1980's, we discovered from class interaction, that what the young people in the class really wanted to know more than anything else, was "how" to make proper application of the biblical principles found in the Bible to their everyday life and living.

Beloved, our young people are very capable of thinking and reasoning on their own. However, as teachers and preachers of God's word, we must know enough about the Bible ourselves, to be able to properly guide our young people's thinking and reasoning capabilities, toward the objective of coming to a logical conclusion and application of the Bible text (or texts) they are studying (Acts 8:26-35; Acts 18:24-28).

When concerned parents and leaders of the Lord's church focus on what our young people really want and need from God's inspired word, they won't need food, entertainment, or anything else, to keep them faithful to the Lord and His church.

Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets


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