Where have all the college students gone?

At our church right now, we are right on the tail end of a campaign called Focus on Your Family.  It is put together by you guessed it, Focus on the Family.  Research shows that up to 80% of students leave the church within 12 months of graduating.  Some have called this the great “Graduation Evacuation”.  Their generation is being called the Bridgers, following up after their parents who were either Boomers or Busters.  Our bridger generation is comprised of aproximately 3 million evangelicals.  Which is merely 4%.  That is down 4.9 million from their parents generation which were at least 16% evangelicals. 

Where have all the college students gone?  Some of you may remember the old Paula Cole song, “Where have all the cowboys gone?”  Very simple question being asked.  Where have the cowboys gone?  Well, I suppose the church world is reeling with a similarly simple question.   Where have all the college students gone? 

I was sitting at lunch today with a guy who is in college and who happens to also serve in the Youth Ministry here at church and we were talking about just this thing.  Not so much where are they, but how can we do a better job of keeping them in the church.  We began to talk about well, what is the church really?  Knowing that the church isn’t bricks and mortar.  The church is flesh and blood.  It is you and I, the Bride of Christ.  Interesting…

What do you see the church as?

Is your church: a building, a Pastor, a Youth Leader, a facility?

Next question: If that is the case, then what happens when the Pastor leaves, or the facility gets run down, or not as flashy as it used to be?  If that is how you would define what Church is then do you in essence loose your church when one of those things is lost? 

{Caution: I am thinking and writing at the same time.  Scary I know…}

But, what if we believed that we truly were the bride of Christ, and we were the church even outside of our pretty walls, projection screens, and dynamically lit worship centers.  What if we truly believed and practiced what it meant to be the church.  Things such as “devoted to the apostles teachings, devoted to fellowship, devoted to the breaking of bread, and devoted to prayer.” {Acts:2:42}  Or what about a few chapters later in Acts chapter 4 where we find the early church taking care of the needs of others.  {Acts 4:32-37}  Or what about in chapter 6 when ministry of the church begins to explode and they need more workers!  Feeding people.  The original meals on wheels program, or love in action, or whatever you flavor of food  service is called.  Here we see the disciples were helping to take care of widows, making sure that they had food, and such things.  These are the things that make us the church! We see them being devoted to one another, not devoted to a figure head, a building, or church bus.  

We are no more “the church” which God intended us to be because we can unify behind a building fund and through faith commit thousands and sometimes millions of dollars to build some structure that we in this present day and age have considered to be a religious looking building.  This does not solidify us as the church.  We will not win and keep our college age students because of these things!  We need to have a great understanding of what the body of Christ truly is.  

I was speaking with a parent of a youth group student the other day, and they said that they desired for their child to be more in love with the bridegroom than the bride of Christ.  I thought that was very thought provoking.  Are you and I falling more in love with the bride of Christ?  Meaning flashy programs and slick presentations?  Or are we truly falling more in love and growing deeply devoted to the bridegroom? 

Maybe it would help if we had a better understanding of what the church truly is, and what it really isn’t.  Just thinking…

~Peter