Homeschool News & Views
Issue 35, Aug 24, 2007
From
Homeschool Helpers
In association with Pass It On Ministries
Greetings. This is Dan
White with Homeschool Helpers.
A new study by Lifeway Research finds that 7 out of 10 young Protestants
who have attended church regularly in the high school years stop attending
church by age 23.
I quote from the Lifeway
information:
“A new study from LifeWay Research reveals that more than two-thirds of young
adults who attend a Protestant church for at least a year in high school will
stop attending church regularly for at least a year between the ages of 18 and
22.
To uncover the reasons
young people leave church, LifeWay Research conducted
a survey in April and May 2007 of more than 1,000 adults ages 18-30. Each indicated that they had attended a
Protestant church regularly for at least a year in high school. Life changes or life situations cause young
people to leave the church. In fact, 97
percent of dropouts list one or more specific life-change issues as a reason
they left church.”
When they cite life
changes as the most common reasons for leaving church, that
can include everything from not wanting to go anymore to moving away to college
to not having time to go because of work.
Of course, the obvious conclusion is that these young people really don’t want to attend church any more. If they did, they would find a way to go, even
if they moved or got a new job. Going to
church is not that important to them, so when their situation changes, they
just don’t go.
The reaction of the
researchers is that the churches need to do a better job of relating to these
young people. Some say that churches
have programs for high school youth and they have programs for young families,
but they don’t have much for young adults. I don’t really think
that’s so. I
have looked at a number of church web sites, and I see church programs for
young adults. And
if a church doesn't have much of a program for young adults, it’s may be
because they don’t have many young adults in the first place.
Are these young people
leaving the churches just because the churches don’t
relate to them very well?
No. If a person goes to church only to be with
other people, then he might as well join a bowling league. If attending a Christian church depends only
on relating to the people there, then there is no spiritual root in that
approach. If going to church is just a
social thing, then when a young person’s social situation changes, he may well
not need church anymore. After all, if
church is just relating to the people there, the youth programs, the camps, the
weekly companionship, if a young person can find new people, the church may not
matter. If it’s
just a place to socialize, they can find new places to socialize.
Actually, what the LifeWay Researches cite as the solution to the youth
dropout problem is more likely the cause of the problem. Churches have placed people above God. They try to be people pleasers instead of God
seekers. They focus on people more than
on God. For the most part, churches don’t stand for anything except not standing for
anything. They have done this so much
that now it is much more difficult for churches to stand for anything upright
at all.
Recently in
“An
Now you may notice that the word “reneged” is a
loaded word. The church “reneged on the
invitation.” The big city newspaper
could have said that the church withdrew its invitation or that the church
changed its mind. But
the word “reneged” implies wrong. If you
are playing cards and you don’t follow suit, you
renege and that is wrong. This article is written to attack the church, but to appear to actually
be objective. No writer is ever
objective. Every writer or commentator
is subject to his own feelings and beliefs, and almost all media in the
An Associated Press article about this was more
direct in its anti-Christian slant: “A megachurch
canceled a memorial service for a Navy veteran 24 hours before it was to start
because the deceased was gay.”
Again that’s a judgment on the part of the writer. There is nothing to
indicate that the church now hates the people it tried to help. It is obvious that the people the church
tried to help now despise the church.
“Mr.
Sinclair, 46, died Monday. He was a native of
His
brother, Lee, is an employee and member of
When Cecil
Sinclair became ill with a heart condition six years ago, church members
started praying for him out of love for his brother, Mr. Simons said Thursday. And when Mr. Sinclair died of an infection, a side effect
of surgery intended to keep him alive long enough for a heart transplant, a
member of the church staff was immediately sent to minister to the family, he
said.
Both the
family and church officials agree that the church volunteered to host a
memorial service, feed 100 guests and create a multimedia presentation of
photos from Mr. Sinclair's life.”
Notice that.
The church collectively prayed for the sick man. When he died, a member of the church was sent specifically to help the family, to take his time
and his energy to offer whatever help he could.
Then the church offered to let the family use their facilities, feed a
hundred people and have their staff go to the work and expense of creating a
memorial DVD of the person. The church
was willing to do that much giving.
“But the
photos that the family selected alerted church officials that there might be a
problem with the service, Mr. Simons said.
“Some of
those photos had very strong homosexual images of kissing and hugging," he
said. "My ministry associates were taken
aback."
And then,
he said, the family asked to have its own people officiate the service. "We had no control over the format of the
memorial," Mr. Simons said.”
The man who died was a practicing Sodomite, as the
Bible would describe that lifestyle. We
have come under the spiritual control of the left so much that even some
Christians shirk back from the use of the Biblical terms to describe this
sin.
Homosexuals live hard and die young. They don’t just die
of AIDS, as might be expected. Studies
have shown that homosexuals, male and female, die from many different causes, disease,
accidents, homicides, suicides – many different causes, but for the most part,
they die young.
The Sodomite’s family was willing to accept the
offer of using the church, of getting a hundred of their people fed, of making
of a memorial DVD – They were willing to accept that offering worth thousands
of dollars from that church, then they demanded
that the church show pictures in its
sanctuary of one man holding another man’s genitals.
Now how’s that for being
fair minded?
The church refused to hold that service. I mean that was
their choice, right? It was their
facility, their money, their people.
They were under no obligation to hold this service for a man who had no
connection with their church, and who lived a life that was against everything
the church stood for, so when they discovered what the family stood for, they
stood up and backed out.
Then great condemnation rained down from the homo
crowd and the left wing press. How dare
this church not agree to this homo tribute!
And that’s why churches don’t usually stand up. They can’t stand the
heat
Even a World Magazine editorial response to this
incident says that Christians focus on condemning homosexuality too much. No, they don’t! Pick up most Christian magazines and they
virtually ignore that terrible sin which is taking over our nation. Listen to most sermons and they are only
theological sermons, studies in doctrine, not warnings against sin. It is so bad that we have reached the point
where a major portion of Christianity in the
Christ taught repentance of sin, not tolerance of
sin, which is surprising to many. The
woman in adultery was told to repent. The Pharisees were told
to repent. The whole city of
The New Covenant assembly began with the message of
Peter, who looked thousands of people in the eye and said,
Act
2:22-23, ESV
(22) "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus
of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and
signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know--
(23) this Jesus,
delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the
hands of lawless men.
Was Peter like
a modern preacher, being careful not to offend the sensitivities of these
sinners? No. He was straightforward. “This Yahshua, … you crucified and killed.”
Act
2:36-38
(36) Let all the house
of
Again Peter was truthful and direct. “This Yahshua
whom you crucified.” Peter, as he
spoke by the guidance of the holy spirit was not
worried about being politically correct.
He was only concerned with being spiritually correct. He did not worry about the people being
offended when he spoke the truth. He was
only concerned with speaking the truth.
These people had killed the Messiah, and he told them so.
(37) Now when they
heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the
rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?"
(38) And Peter said to them, "Repent and be
baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of
your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Act
2:40-41
(40) And with many other words he bore witness and
continued to exhort them, saying, "Save
yourselves from this crooked generation."
(41) So those who received his word were baptized,
and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
Peter told them straight out that
they had killed the Messiah. Then,
because Peter told them what was what they said, “Uh oh.” And many repented.
But Peter still had to take the heat, in the next
chapter of Acts. Standing for right in a
world of wrong will always cause a problem.
That church in
Act 3:26,
Peter said:
(26) When God raised up
his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning every one of you
from your evil ways."
The whole
purpose of Christ is to turn people from their evil ways.
That’s what the churches don’t do today. They don’t turn
people from their evil ways. And the young people know that. When they go to the churches, it’s more of a social thing than a spiritual thing. When their social situation changes, it doesn’t really matter if they go to church or not. They have found a new place to go bowling.
The purpose of each human life is to know the
Creator who made Him. Everything else in
life pales beside this purpose. All
church, all education, all work must be pointed toward this purpose. Church is not to be just a social thing. It is a rallying of the troops in this
terrible war we are in, to point us to our Commander in Chief, Yahshua the Messiah.
Just as people who wanted more left the public
school system, so now people who want more are leaving the church system. Just as homeschooling became a movement, so
home churches and small Bible studies are becoming a movement.
If the young people who drop out of the churches
did so to directly follow Christ, then that would be a
good thing. I
know that most of the church services I attend and most of the sermons I hear
do not inspire me at all. At best they
bore me, at worst they depress me. They’re just
doctrinal disputations and theological tidwinkling. They do not turn people from their evil ways.
But most of these young people, when they leave the
churches, just drop right down into the world. That is the culture they
have learned to love in the public schools, which the churches have not stood
against. Then they are worse off
than in the churches, where they are taught at least a
modicum of morality. Long term this
trend is changing the whole country.
Witness the extreme reaction to the
So 7 out of 10 kids who attend church regularly
during high school years drop out by age 23.
Surely many of them can tell that the churches aren’t really standing
for anything and aren’t really seeking God, so how much difference does it make
if they go to church or not? It’s not a life thing – it’s just a social thing.
On the other hand, research has shown that about 4
out of 5 Christian homeschool grads become Christians
as adults. Their families do make a
stand against the culture of the world by pulling out of the public schools. Then their kids stand up themselves. That’s quite a
contrast, isn’t it? 7
out of 10 and 4 out of 5.
It’s so obvious.
If the churches would just stand up against this world, including
standing against the public schools of this world, then their young people
would stop dropping out and start standing up.