Talk about a panic and lots of misinformation. Over the past years there has been a huge amount of articles, books, videos, and messages about the exodus of youth and young adults from the Church. I personally have been involved with several projects on this issue, and likely have added fuel to this fire, but a few misconceptions must be broken.
First, Christianity worldwide is not on a decline. In fact the ‘spiritual birthrate’ is higher than natural birthrate. Worldwide, Christianity is growing the fastest amongst young people. There has never been such a high percentage of Christians on the planet as there is at this moment.
While there are many denominations and church groups in North America and Canada that are struggling, there are in fact many that are actually growing, not shrinking. There were several discoveries made, for example, when the Hemorrhaging Faith study came out last year. Some groups here in Canada are doing much better in engaging their youth and young adults and keeping them. There are certainly common factors amongst these students and groups who are doing well.
Before You Say Goodbye is a project being released this January. It has been years in the making and it is going to focus on connecting youth and young adults to practices, ministries, online content, and organizations which can help them in their faith journey. One goal is to examine and discuss what the common factors are amongst these growing churches and groups.
It is a one of a kind web-interactive magazine that will be in print and e-book form. There are over one hundred ministries, videos, and websites from across Canada who are dedicated to serving this age group linked into this project. By using QR codes and weblinks students can read the content and also be taken to all the online content and websites of each ministry.
There has never been a resource like this produced for the youth and young adults in our country. I believe every church, ministry, and family could benefit from having this.
This resource will be available to pre-order for ministries until January 15, 2014 at a discount rate, and with free shipping, on orders over 25. Visit the store for more info.
In January a free study guide will be offered for download so that youth, youth adult groups, families, and Churches can use this as a study as well.