Change needs to happen

ALL around me people are asking the same questions, over and over again: “Why are young people not coming to church?”, “Why do young people not like church?”. There’s a simple answer to a long-debated question…

I’m 17 years old and I’ve been going to church for as long as I can remember. I’m a Christian and I’m also a teenager, and that means I see two worlds.

During the week, I go to school and I see many problems that my generation faces. I see my school’s counsellor leave because of budget cuts, yet the mental health support worker has pupils every period of every day because they’re crying out for help. I see my friends left shaking from panic attacks in the classroom and intelligent, funny, incredible kids left crippled by anxiety and depression. I see my teachers asking our minister to come into the school as often as he can because they’re pleading for more help. And it’s not just at school anymore, we go home, and our phones are bombarded by pictures and videos of a so-called perfect life that just makes us feel even more inadequate.

go to church and meet a lot of kind people, but they don’t know, or they don’t want to know about my generation’s reality. And yet people still ask the question: “Why are young people not coming to church”?

I’ve been lucky to be able to attend Soul Survivor Scotland for the past four summers and it has been life-changing for me. You see, I go to Soul Survivor and I don’t feel judged, I don’t feel like I should be someone I’m not, I feel like I can be me. Soul Survivor doesn’t skirt around the issues that are important to young people, they’ve done talks on anxiety, science vs God, slavery and human trafficking, putting yourself first and telling your friends about Jesus, all things that matter to young people. I remember last summer I went to a seminar about women in leadership and the hall was packed, because so many young women don’t feel valued in their church and wanted to know what God thought. These things, however difficult they might be for some people to approach, are so important for my generation to talk about. Soul Survivor is what church should be like, a safe place where you can be yourself and talk about the things you’re struggling with and allow Jesus to help.

Yet, I go to church and I see our minister trying so hard to change things around but so often they do it all by themselves while others criticise from the side-lines.

Church needs to be relevant; it needs to tackle the big issues, it needs to be open, that’s so important.

My generation is yearning to feel wanted, it’s yearning to feel loved. The church needs to love, it needs to be open.

My generation is yearning to feel wanted, it’s yearning to feel loved. The church needs to love, it needs to be open. My generation, we don’t care if you don’t agree with us, you just need to love and respect us, we have so much to offer. My generation have been called the world’s change-makers, we will embrace you if you give us a chance.

Change needs to happen but it needs to be a team effort.

The times of one person doing all the work are gone, each and every person needs to pull their weight for change to happen.

If change doesn’t happen, a whole generation could be lost.

If you are under 30 and involved in the Church of Scotland and would be interested in writing for this column, please email us on magazine@lifeandwork.org

This article appears in the March 2020 Issue of Life and Work

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