This is an article that I published on the old Chloe Foy website and I thought it would be proper to republish it here in that it speaks to the heart of this mission.

A portrait of a family on the precipice of a great divide… I suppose there is not a deeper or more meaningful divide than one that is religious, and it’s never more personal than when that religious divide works its way between a parent and child.

When a child becomes an adult and begins to express values that are wholly different from their parents and decidedly different from their upbringing, a panic naturally comes to the fore for the parent. Sometimes that panic causes us to rush to judgment, and then we try to fix what we perceive is broken with biblical condemnation. Worst of all, we try to parent our 18 year old the way we would have when they were 10. It’s like we forget that our children are people who need to be witnessed to. The fact that they grew up in church does not guarantee that they grew up in the Lord. The fact that we diligently enforced their attendance to church doesn’t mean that they have cultivated a desire to go.

It’s a trying time for a parent when our children make choices that darken their spirituality but we must remember that the same Holy Spirit that called you out of darkness into His marvelous light is still on the job. Hallelujah.

It would be a revolution in the experience of young people growing up in the church if we could figure out how to show them that Christianity is more than the “don’t do this”, “don’t do that”, “don’t go here”, “don’t wear that”, “don’t listen to this”, “don’t watch that”, “don’t feel like this”, “don’t question that”, kind of religion we often peddle…

I’m praying that we can begin to move in the direction of devoting our conversation and resources toward explanations and alternatives. We have to learn to articulate God’s plan for life and salvation in a manner that our youth will respond to, and this is our collective burden in this generation.

Logically the algorithm is this, if we can’t reach the children we have reared in the church, then we won’t be able to reach the children who were not raised in the church. Time is running out for us to get this one right. There are youth out there that are growing up without the hope and understanding of Christ and as a result they lead self destructive lives: drug abuse, promiscuity, teenage pregnancy, misogyny, materialism and occult involvement… and I know many of these things affect church youth. But that’s the point, if we can’t work with the youth that we raised, how can we work with other youth? Or let me ask this another way. Why would God do the spiritual work needed to reach youth in the secular world if we have not yet reached the youth in our church families?

In the October 2009 edition of Adventist World President Jan Paulsen wrote an article titled Why Do They Walk Away?, subtitled, keeping youth and young adults engaged in the church must be one of our highest priorities. In fact, President Paulsen is so concerned about youth leaving the church that he referred to it as an “exodus that distresses him deeply.”

I too am deeply distressed with this exodus. I am also deeply distressed with the overall spiritual state of youth in general. If you are too, please let’s continue to pray for them, let’s continue to advocate for them, let’s continue to encourage their spiritual growth, and finally, let us never give up on them.

Blessings...