I recently attended a denominational state convention meeting where during the address they noted that membership was declining and that obviously what there were doing was wrong. Then there was an article in the local paper about the stress that one denomination was experiencing in the city and the decline it was seeing. There seems to be a theme of decline in Christianity. I want to look at it through comments in this article over the next few posts and their correlation with why church membership may be on the decline.  While comments in the article are referenced, it is in no way a commentary on this one denomination.

I believe that the reasons churches are in decline are many, as I will touch on over the next few posts. The first reason I see is a lack of proper focus on children and youth ministry.

Churches today have some general presuppositions, here is one of them from the article:

“Ordinarily, people will come back to church when they have kids. In this day and age, people are delaying that” 

It seems that churches have accepted the model that when youth graduate high school, that they will leave the church and return when they have children. I think the question we need to ask is why does that model exist? Has “church” become a place to teach values and not Christ? Parents return to instill good morals in their children?

Personally I wonder what kind of children and youth ministry churches in decline might offer. Many churches minimize children’s ministry and praise youth ministry if they have a large number for a retreat, or an activity. While Jesus may be taught, the focus can be entertainment, or producing large numbers for attendance and Jesus is lost as the reason those events take place.

One church in the article stated that they once had 200 children for its vacation Bible schools… Now …. it’s just a few. I personally am not a big VBS “fan” for various reasons, though I do acknowledge that a VBS can be a very effective outreach, or discipleship program. While the statement is simply intended to show the decline of the church, I think the correlation of VBS numbers indicates that they thought they had a vibrant ministry to children, but now they do not. If the children’s ministry truly was vibrant and teaching children about Jesus and life-change, then I believe that God would continue to bless it.

Churches that do not maintain a focus on children’s ministry are destined to die within a few decades as the population ages.

How does your church view children and youth ministry? Is it leading to a decline in attendance, or is it building the next generation to serve Jesus?