Author: Drew Dyck, "Generation Ex-Christian"

Drew Dyck is the author of "Generation Ex-Christian," a book dealing with the mass exodus of young adults from the church.

Apparently a lot of young people aren't attracted to local churches. Why this generation more than others?

I think it  starts with taking a look in the mirror. Often the problem lies with us.
The way we do youth ministry is to see how many kids we can get through the door on a Friday night and keep entertained. 

I saw a statistic that said 65% of young adults in this country  have at some point made a decision for Jesus.
We've done an excellent job getting them through the door, signing the card, saying the prayer, but we've done a poor job following through. 

It starts in the home. A lot of parents have this idea that they can take their kids to youth group and the professionals will do their job.
That's so wrong. What happens at church can't make up for what happens 24/7 at home. 

I tell parents who are concerned about their kids walking away not to wring their hands about it if their own faith isn't vibrant. It's hard to expect the kids to do something that the parents didn't model for them.

When talking about church, and youth groups in particular, did we once do it better?

We did, actually. The reason the whole youth ministry movement started was for biblical education.
Now it's more about pizza and video games. 

If our strategy is to out-entertain the world, we've settled for a tragic replacement for biblical education and the kind of Christianity that changes the world.

In my interviews, I was surprised to find that youth groups were thought of positively. I got comments like, "I loved my youth group! It was so much fun!" We entertain without informing.

 Why are young adults so hostile towards the church?

I tried to identify some themes that emerged during my interviews. A lot of people cite intellectual problems with the faith, but there are underlying experiences that moved them to walk away. \

For instance, I spoke with one girl who talked for an hour about her intellectual case against God. As I was finishing up the interview, asking her a few more questions, it came out that she had been betrayed at a Christian school by Christian friends. 

Many times intellectual doubt are just a smokescreen for previous negative experiences.