kind of a gripe

this post really isn't updating anything, i am just griping about a trend that is disturbing me....

Rachael and i went to a church today in corpus that was a pretty good church. they claim to have a really good/strong youth group, but you hardly ever see any of them in any of the services. the services are all contemporary and they are fairly well run services, but the youth are not involved in them at all except for a couple of Sundays every quarter. to me this seems like a waste of a great resource in a church, and it is one that i have been noticing for a very long time in many of the churches that i have attended. when you think of contemporary worship you think of youth and younger members of the church congregation. yet when you go to these services, more often than not the band that is playing all of the songs is all well beyond there middle age. this is a wasted opportunity to get the youth involved in the services in a way that many of them would like to. many kids in youth groups are some pretty talented musicians and this is a perfect chance to let them take some ownership in the church they attend. without a feeling of belonging they will just show up when their parents make them or if they happen to wake up early enough and they feel like listening to a sermon. I think that not nurturing your youth in all aspects of the church is an error that too many churches commit. They are fine with sealing the life blood of the church in its own part of the building where they wont disturb the financial blood (aka all of the old people) and still they can continue to claim a "strong youth program".