From Outreach Magazine by Rob Wilkins

Two our of three high-school students leave church after graduation. How can we reverse the trend?

Shannon was 13 when she cut herself for the first time, three years ago.

“No one knew I was depressed,” Shannon says. “I was the model youth group person. I smiled a lot. I answered the Bible study questions.”

And she left the group, week after week, month after month, without a clue about how faith affects life.

Also three years ago and 13 at the time, Levhi came to the same youth group by way of a friend.

“We were both kids whose parents forced us to go to youth group,” he says. “He was much more into smoking weed than he was into Jesus.”

Shannon and Levhi are two of the nearly 150 young people who attend the youth group at Journey Community Church in La Mesa, Calif., on any given weekend. That’s 150 similar stories: personal searches for identity, purpose and significance.

Journey’s youth pastor of high school ministry, Brian Berry, understands the urgency of reaching youth at this time in their lives. The statistics, as he recounts them, are sobering:

– Two out of 3 high school students leave the church after graduation.

– But 77 percent of Christians come to faith by the age of 21.

– More than 40 percent of young people aged 16 to 29 are now outside the Christian faith, up from 27 percent during the previous generation.

Facing a daunting challenge, Berry, along with many youth leaders across the country, wrestles with difficult questions, like:

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