Churches in the UK lack the confidence to address subjects young people “really care about” and feel a “general sense of desperation” about how to improve youth and children’s work in coming years, according to the findings of a new study from Christian charity Youthscape.
Launched this week, the research is based on a poll of some 2,054 churches across England, Scotland and Wales. It found that while nearly all churches offered some form of child-related work on a Sunday, smaller churches were much less likely to offer youth-related work. Of those that did offer youth work, only half “often” discussed the basic beliefs of the Christian faith with young people while the majority never discussed subjects such as pornography, same-sex attraction, other world faiths and drugs and addiction.
“The overall tone of responses from the churches was pretty desperate,” says a report on the findings, Losing Heart. “Many lack the people, the funds and the time to keep their youth and children’s work going, and many don’t have any youth work, or any young people (and in some cases children) to start with. When asked what was good about their youth and children’s work, many simply answered: ‘not a lot’. There is a desire to offer something to children and young people, but many churches don’t have the energy or the ideas to make it happen.”
Among the greatest needs identified by churches in the area of youth and children’s work were the need for more helpers, paid workers, resources and money. Finding younger workers in aging congregations was a particular problem in some churches.
Writing in the report, which contains four case studies to help churches struggling in the area of youth and children’s work, Youthscape CEO Chris Curtis said that while the church has been a “force for good” in the lives of children and young people for decades, now “at the very point when the need is greater than ever, it finds itself disconnected and unable to respond”.
“Old ideas and methods have run their course,” he wrote. “Something new needs to emerge in the way the church thinks about resources and does youth and children’s ministry. Denominations and old barriers between us must become less important. Innovation and risk must be allowed to thrive, because the opposite reaction breeds caution and small-mindedness.”
