What is the root cause behind the exodus of our children from the modern church?

Scott Brown explains in this video that youth ministry is not the cause of our children leaving the church. Rather, it stems from ignoring the things that are plainly taught in Scripture. The root problem is the failure to trust what Scripture has to say and the resulting disobedience of it. In short, we have stopped believing that Scripture is sufficient.

There are a variety of things that have caused this crisis among our youth. But all of them have the same root cause – a lack of appreciation for the Word of God and an appreciation for modern traditions. The Bible can be trusted to guide the way we lead our youth. Yet, the modern church has set aside Scripture and has done something that is foreign to Scripture and actually contradicts it.

Joshua 1:8 (NKJV) – “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

Some of the people who watch Divided criticize the film for saying that youth ministry has caused the mass exodus of youth from the Church. So is this our message? That youth ministry is the cause of the problem? This has never been our position. Nor is it at all what we say in the film.

In the film, we were very careful to say that what we do believe is that the reason for the mass exodus of youth is something else. And here's what we say. It's the result of ignoring the things that are plainly taught in scripture. We say that the root cause of the problems is a lack of trust in scripture and the resulting disobedience. That somewhere along the line, we quit believing that Scripture was sufficient.

So as for the loss of the next generation, we say apostasy always follows disobedience. There's a long list of things that we believe has caused the youth crisis, including the preaching of a false gospel, homes out of order, fathers neglecting their God-ordained roles, of churches totally out of order, of hypocritical parents, of a famine of the preaching of the word of God in churches. They also depart from the church because they were never really a part of the true church anyway. The Apostle John explains this by saying in 1 John 2.19, They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.

But they went out, that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us." So all of these things have contributed to the mass exodus of youth. All these things have the same root cause, lack of appreciation for the beautiful details in the Word of God, and appreciation instead of modern traditions. So the whole point of Divided is that the Bible can be trusted in the way that we disciple youth. Our message is that God has spoken clearly about the discipleship of youth, but the modern church has set aside Scripture, has ceased to do what Scripture prescribes, and instead has done something that is foreign to Scripture and actually contradicts it.