What's the message youth hear?
___By Ferrell Foster
___Texas Baptist Communications
___ARLINGTON--Despite their best intentions, Christians are sending the wrong message in the way they do youth evangelism today, according to Mark Matlock, president of WisdomWorks Ministries in Irving.
___Matlock led a small-group session at the Youth Ministry Conclave Nov. 9-11 at the Arlington Convention Center.
___"We need to change the deep structure of and strategy of evangelism, not just its style," Matlock said. "It's not just enough to take a 'Four Spiritual Laws' tract, put a bunch of cool, edgy graphics on it and say, 'Hey, this is hip; this is now; this is on the cutting edge.'"
___What teenagers need
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YOUTH WORKERS get on stage with Audio Adrenaline during the Monday evening session of the Youth Ministry Conclave, sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
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, he said, is more doctrinal teaching.
___Many evangelism methods used today imply that "if you just say the right words in the right order, if you just follow the acronym, if you just sling the power bracelet beads in the right way, that is going to magically have an impact on their life," Matlock said. "That is the hidden message that we're
sending even though we would never say that, even though we don't believe that."
___Matlock even goes so far as to say youth ministry over-emphasizes evangelism. "What I wonder is if students don't start thinking that that's really all there is to the Christian life and the Christian faith."
___Conversions are "not happening in any great numbers" among teens, Matlock said, based on information from a Barna Research Group study commissioned by WisdomWorks. The probability today of a person between ages 5 and 13 accepting Christ is 32 percent. In the age group 14 to 18, the probability drops to 4 percent. And from age 19 to death, the probability is 6 percent, Barna found. This data suggests that teens are resistant to the gospel or that evangelistic strategies are ineffective or both, Matlock said. It may be time to bury some of the methods being used to evangelize youth, he suggested.
___WisdomWorks commissioned the study to have support for its emphasis on teaching a biblical worldview, Matlock said. It also wanted to discover beliefs and doctrines supporting the actions of those teenagers who do intentionally share their faith with other teens.
___What they found was that even the basics have been missed by many teens who call themselves Christians.
___Sixty-one percent "didn't even offer a guess" as to what John 3:16 said. Only 15 percent got the verse or concept correct, he reported. Also, 94 percent had no guess about the Great Commission.
___"There is evidence to support that when students have a good doctrinal background they are more likely to share their faith than if they don't have that," Matlock said.
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