Why We Cannot Simply Return to 1980s–1990s Youth Ministry
The Pinetops Foundation report The Great Opportunity (2019) projected that over the next three decades, more than one million youth who are at least nominally in the church will leave each year. By 2050, an estimated 35 million young people raised in Christian families will no longer identify as Christian. The report urged a return to the strong youth-ministry emphasis of the 1980s and 1990s.
As someone who has spent more than three decades in ministry to teens, I share the longing for renewed investment in the next generation. Twenty-five years ago, youth ministry was the fastest-growing college major and Youth Specialties conventions drew thousands. Churches that hired youth ministers and reached teenagers often experienced significant growth—The Falls Church under John Yates and the Diocese of South Carolina under Bishop Salmon are clear examples.
Yet we should not simply recreate that era. In 2003, Mike Yaconelli, founder of Youth Specialties, wrote in Youthworker Journal: “So let’s be honest. Youth ministry as an experiment has failed. If we want to see the church survive, we need to rethink youth ministry… If we want to see young people have a faith that lasts, then we have to completely change the way we do youth ministry in America.”
Two years later, Christian Smith’s National Study of Youth and Religion—the largest study ever conducted on American teens—described the typical teenage attitude toward God as “Benign Whateverism” and their belief system as “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” That system holds:
God exists and created the world.
God wants people to be good, nice, and fair.
The main purpose of life is to be happy and feel good about yourself.
God helps people when they have problems.
Good people go to heaven.
It is moralistic, therapeutic, and deistic. COVID accelerated the departure of nominal Christians, with younger generations experiencing the largest drop in attendance and the fewest returns. If we simply revive the old model, we risk producing another generation of Moralistic Therapeutic Deists. We need youth ministry—but we must do it differently this time.