I was talking to the youth pastor at my church the other day and he mentioned that he and his wife had read that somewhere along the lines of 50% of young people who attend youth ministry end up leaving and turning away after the graduate highschool and go to college. Then he went on to tell me about what he is working on doing to combat that figure in our own church.
I would be curious to know what the number is of people who have fallen away, but then later return at some point in their life. The teachings of God and the Bible do stay with us. Just because a youth has a falling away at period in their life, doesn't mean that they will forever be lost. I am not saying that it is a good thing that they go through this time in their life. It certainly can be very damaging to them and cause a lot of future heartache.
I have read that the Amish have a thing called rumspringa where at the age of 16, they allow the youth to experiment and try out the world. At the end of a period of time, the youth must decide to leave the Amish faith, or return and be Amish. They say that something like 80 percent do return. Again, I am not saying that any of this is a good thing. I just would be curious to know how many of our youth who fall away also return.
It is ideal that no one should have to go through those dark times in life that pull us away from our faith. Unfortunately, many of us do have them. They are not things we are proud of. If we know someone who is going through one of these, all we can do is love them and pray for them. We can not tie people up and force them to submit.
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