How Do We Get Teenagers To Love the Church?

I want to thank everyone for the overwhelming response to yesterday's post, How To Ruin a Teenager's Faith.  Apparently the topic and the content struck a chord with many of my readers, and I heard from a lot of you.  I was basking in the sweet glow of success until I got an anonymous comment late yesterday afternoon that complimented my post and then posed the following question- How do we get teenagers to love the church?  I thought my head might explode.  Why, you ask?  Because that is the absolute WRONG QUESTION to be asking.  It's like asking, "How do I get my kids to love Pizza Hut?"  You don't- you get them to love pizza!  Let me explain.


Many churches spend a lot of time and money hiring professional youth pastors to join their staffs and try to convince teenagers to love the church.  We (I was one of them for many years!) youth dudes & dudettes come on board and plan creative lessons, outrageous events and the occasional Egg & Armpit Relay.  We do these things with one goal in mind- get teenagers to show up at church.  We know that we want them to love Jesus, so maybe if we can get them in our building it will just happen. In the process, we are usually trying to subconsciously plant one or more of these thoughts in the minds of those reluctant church goers... 

• Jesus is cool.  With all of the crazy things we do we do in his name, he must be cool- right?  We want them to think "this is not your mother's Jesus!"  The thing is, Jesus has always been cool.  We don't need to change his image to make him seem relevant.  No one has ever been more relevant than Jesus!
• We are cool.  We get it in our heads that if students are not yet ready to follow Jesus, then maybe they are ready to follow a groovy, gotee growing, guitar playing, flip-flop wearing surfer dude.  In fact, if students are really drawn to us, it is not for any of those reasons. It is because they feel loved.  More on that in a minute...
• Church is cool.  With our rocking praise bands, 50 foot projection screens, high resolution videos and youth friendly sermons, many of our churches do everything they can to keep teenagers entertained.  And this is appreciated, because for many years churches did everything they could to help them catch up on their sleep.  But is a rock'n'roll worship service really enough to get teenagers to love the church?  Can our churches "out-entertain" our society?  Highly doubtful...

Any of those concepts may work for a short time, but none of them will solve our long-term issue.  The problem is the question.  It's great when kids love the church, but it is crucial that they love Jesus.  And how do we get teenagers to love Jesus?  Relationships. It's not really about getting them to show up at church; it's about helping them understand that Jesus is already showing up in their lives! They may be drawn to church through their relationships with friends or a youth pastor.  The may experience Jesus through the relationships gained in passionate worship or a supportive small group.  But it is only when they encounter the love of God whose name is Jesus that their lives will truly change.  Once that introduction is made, they will understand that Jesus has something we all need- teenagers included.  If our goal is getting youth to love the church, then next week's Bungee Tower Free Fall event might just work.  If it's getting them to love Jesus, then we have to love them first.  Remember this old cliche, which got to be an old cliche because it is absolutely true- "No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care."  And once they understand how much God cares, their lives will change. I'll close with these magnificent words from Ephesians 3:14-19:

"My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God."

Because of Jesus,