In the discussion about the documentary 'Divided', Scott Brown shares his belief that youth ministries can potentially be harmful to families by usurping the authority of parents, especially fathers. The documentary and Brown support the Family Integrated Church movement which advocates age-integrated discipleship, where all generations are gathered together for spiritual growth. Brown argues that the only explicit pattern of discipleship in the Bible is age-integrated, and that this is how Jesus, Moses, Joshua, and the early church operated. He believes that churches should follow these biblical patterns, rather than creating separate youth ministries. The discussion also touches upon the issues of homeschooling and the importance of considering whether certain church practices align with scriptures.

After being a full-time youth pastor for five years, successful by youth ministry standards, I look back and realize I believe I did more harm to families than I ever imagined. And I see that more as I look back because I was usurping the authority of parents, especially fathers, by having their children's hearts turned towards me, with their permission. And I look back and I wish I could go back and do it all over. I can't. But today I can make a difference more with young people and the lives of young people through the biblical standard of fathers turning their hearts towards their children.

I don't question the heart of most youth pastors, youth leaders. They're there because I believe most of them love children, they love young people. They want to see them reached. The problem is how we're doing that. And what we have to go back to is what does the Bible say?

There is something fundamentally wrong with the church's drive to say, we can do a better job at raising your children than you can. And God has appointed fathers to lead their children, not for someone else to come and do it just because they've had a college degree or some seminary training. That does not qualify someone to all of a sudden become the spiritual leader of your family. There are adult parents raising kids now, And they're raising them in the church because 10, 20 years ago, they had a buddy that brought them to youth group. They committed their life to Christ, and that was so powerful and so transformational that that has not just affected their life, that has not just made them a Christ follower for life, it's affected generations to come.

Hello and welcome to TLN Now. I'm Jerry Rose. You just saw perspectives from two different sides of a debate about youth ministry that's currently taking place in the church, and we're going to be talking about that on the program tonight. And joining me for the discussion is Greg Bogdan, who is the father of 11 kids, ages 16 to 2. Greg, good to have you on the program.

Thanks for having me on. We're going to be discussing a controversial new documentary called Divided. And Greg, in a nutshell, you've seen it. What's it about? It's a new documentary from the family integrated church movement focused on looking at youth ministry across America, probably across the world, and the effects that youth ministry is having on the family in general.

It's talking about ultimately age-integrated segregation in the church and the effects, negative or positive, to it. It's very interesting, very interesting perspective. Well, the documentary, however, takes a pretty dogmatic position on that, that there is no place in the church, if I understand it correctly, there is no place in the church for youth ministry. Yeah, one of the things you'll see in the documentary, it talks specifically about the fact that youth ministry isn't discussed in the scriptures, and so ultimately we can look at that and say it's not biblical. Well speaking of students, before we get into our topic tonight, we've asked our viewers to send in the names of children and grandchildren who are going back to school so we could pray for them, and several have sent in names.

In fact, I have some of those right here. Melody from Chicago says she would like prayer for her grandchildren. I can identify with that. Janelle, age 11, Janae, age 7, and Jada, age 6, and we will pray for them. Paula from Evanston says, please pray for my grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Wow. Emmanuel, who is preschool, Zoette, who is preschool, Ricardo, high school, Regina, high school, Christina, high school, and Francesca, who is in college. That's a good spread there. Maria from Homewood, please pray for my granddaughter. I think that's Renah and other kids, Jasmine, Jordan, Devontae, Joseph, and nieces and nephews, Precious, Destiny, and Kendall.

And Greg, I think you have, well no, I've also got Jeanette from San Francisco, pray for her college age children, Comfort, age 24, Jane, age 21, Acuna, age also 21. Greg, what do you have? We've also got Doris from Chicago wanting to pray for her nieces and nephews. She's got a bunch of them. It's Aisha, Lauren, Lawrence, Michaela, Kenneth, Andre, Travis, Tyler, Michael, Jay, and Dusty.

And then also Tanya from San Leonardo, California. For her grandson, Ronald, daughter, Rashida, and brothers, Sean and Charles. And then also Fred from Oakland, California, his nephew Jim and niece Tanya. Good. A lot of grandparents calling in for the grandkids.

That's good. You have 11 kids. I don't know of anybody who should be able to pray for kids any better than you. So would you lead us in prayer? Yes.

Heavenly Father, we just thank you for this time together tonight to be able to discuss youth ministry, Lord, and how to affect the next generation, Lord. And as we come to you this evening, Lord, we just pray that you would be with these people that called in for their nieces, nephews, for their children, Lord, that you would just be with them all across the nation, Lord, as we go back into this time of school, Lord, that you would protect them from the evil that does come with it, Lord, and also equip them to be able to be warriors for you as they go into their schools, Lord, as they go into their grade schools and their high schools and their junior highs, Lord, that you would just be with them and just unite the body of Christ together in a way that would be glorifying to you. We pray these things in your name this evening. Amen. Amen.

Thank you. I want to remind you that our prayer lines are open all through the hour. Our Care Force prayer partners are there. They're waiting for you to call. The number to call, 888-235-9907.

And I want you to understand, we really consider it a privilege to pray for you and to pray with you. So all you have to do is pick up the phone, call that number, and there will be people there to talk to you. And if all the phones are busy, you can just try again and there will be somebody to talk to. Well, when we return, we're going to talk about a controversial documentary that says that Sunday schools and youth ministry programs should be abolished in the church. Do you agree?

Well, it's gonna be an interesting discussion, and it's a fascinating perspective that you don't want to miss. We'll be right back. Stay tuned. Welcome back. You know, if you're part of the mainstream church, you probably haven't given much thought to the youth program your church offers, or if you have kids there, maybe you have.

Or you may have even chosen your church based on the size and reputation of the youth program. But there's a new movement called Family Integrated Church that questions the validity of removing children from their parents and putting them in age-segregated classrooms like we have in most Sunday schools and youth groups today. A new documentary titled Divided looks at this idea from the perspective of those inside this new movement. I was desperate. I was so desperate I went to the Word of God.

I looked up children in the concordance of the word of God and found Ephesians 6. And it turns out Paul doesn't have much to say about youth groups. There's these verses, these key verses. Ephesians 6, 1 to 4. Very simple.

What we do is We stand up and we say, fathers, bring your children up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. Fathers, you're responsible. Tag, you're it, man. We were here to equip you, to encourage you, to do whatever it takes, but man, you're it. And then we turn to the children and say, honor him.

Listen to him. Follow him. The reason that the faith is falling apart is we don't have men who love God with their heart, soul, mind, and strength enough to teach their children God's Word as they sit in their house, as they walk by the way, as they rise up, as they lie down. If they love God with their heart, soul, mind, and strength, they would disciple their children whom they love to the God they love. There's got to be more love for God here.

It comes down to a man standing at the cross of Jesus Christ and seeing the blood drip from the hands of the Savior who died for that man. And if He understands that love man, he's gonna go home and he's gonna love God. And he's gonna love his children, he's gonna disciple his children to the God he loves. We have direct commandments in the scriptures everywhere that men are supposed to teach and train their own children. So we have gone with a plan B.

Do you see that? And you can pour money into it, man hours into it, you can give your life for it, but it's plan B. It isn't the plan that God recommended and commanded. So even if there's some success in a youth group, that still doesn't make it biblical. And if it's not biblical, it's not right.

Scott Brown is the executive producer of the documentary Divided. He's also the director of the National Center for Family Integrated Churches and received a Master of Divinity from Talbot School of Theology and is offered the book entitled, A Weed in the Church, about youth discipleship and modern youth ministry practices. Scott, good to have you on the program. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming.

A controversial documentary? It certainly is. And I'm sure is going to create quite a bit of controversy within the church because most churches focus an awful lot of attention on youth ministry and even considering themselves youth churches. Talk a little bit more about your position on this and why you advocate so strongly not having youth ministry in churches. Sure.

The whole point of... I assume you're talking about formal youth ministry. Yes, yeah, yeah. Age-segregated, programmatic youth ministry. So the whole point of this film divided and the whole point of my book, A Weed in the Church, is really to say that the gospel is so enormously precious and important that we should be very careful to observe in scripture the way that God has chosen to communicate the gospel to the younger generation and the Bible actually says a lot about it so it's really to extol Does it say a lot about not having youth ministry, or it doesn't say much about having youth ministry?

Well, yeah, here's... People often think our argument is, there's no youth ministry in the Bible. That's... I mean, that is actually true, But that's not the heart of our argument. The heart of our argument really is that the only explicit pattern that you see for the discipleship of youth is age-integrated discipleship.

Think of the beauty of the patterns of the Lord Jesus Christ. Think of the way that the Apostle Paul communicated the Gospel to the rising generation, or the early church, or Moses, or Joshua, or Nehemiah, or Joel. All of these just reflect what really is the only explicit pattern in scripture, and that is that the generations are gathered together. That's what the gospel does, it gathers everyone together. So the argument isn't really youth ministry doesn't exist in the Bible, while that's true, our argument really is the only thing that exists from Genesis to Revelation in the discipleship of the rising generation and the old people and everybody in between is age-integrated discipleship.

In the New Testament it doesn't talk at all about youth ministry, age-integrated, or any other kind of youth ministry, does it? Well, like... Where would it describe youth ministry in the New Testament? Sure, it just pictures it everywhere. For example, when the Lord Jesus Christ is ministering, He is of course very well known for saying, you know, suffer the little children to come into me.

He desires them there. He's on a hillside. He's in a home and He's teaching. He's on a pathway walking. Teaching children?

Well, if he's on a hillside, certainly the feeding of the 5, 000. What you see in Scripture with the Lord Jesus are age-integrated gatherings. The same thing, the early church, the only thing we really know explicitly about the early church is that it was age-integrated. That's why the Apostle Paul, when he was writing to the Ephesians and the Colossians, he says, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. Servants, obey your masters.

Children, obey your parents and the Lord. He's just assuming that the children are there in the meeting of the Church to hear his instruction, his complex language, his beautiful expositions of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the children are just assumed to be there. And you see children all over the New Testament. So, from the perspective that you hold on this, then you would say ultimately, because we don't see in the New Testament there anything but aging or an age-integrated church, we can assume that that would be the direction the church should go.

Yeah, I think... The ultimate or only direction the church should go, or would it be the ideal? Well, the Apostle Paul said, follow my pattern, we have no other pattern. The Lord Jesus Christ said, you know, follow me. Sure.

Be my disciple. Do what I do. So, Do we want to do what Moses did? Do we want to do what Joshua did? Do we want to do what...

You know, and so forth? For someone that was being a devil's advocate, let's bring up this issue of, let's say, Timothy. We have Timothy who was taught by his mother, who we know a lot of, obviously. And his grandmother, yes. And his grandmother.

We see him taught by Paul. We don't see him taught by his father. So for someone that's looking at, follow my example, we can say in some instances, in the case of a loss of potentially not a father around, not a saved father, How do you see that being dealt with from the perspective, could that be a youth pastor in the case of this case? Or would that have to be an associate or an executive pastor or a multiple elder situation in a church or could that be a friend on the street that's a Christian? I mean, how do you see that playing out when someone would say, okay, well, we can see it, but from a dogmatic perspective to say the youth group is unacceptable or is a demise of the family would be going too far.

How would you respond to that? I would say you bring up a wonderful example of Timothy, who really seems like a fatherless boy. Right. Whom the Lord used his mother and his grandmother. But what was the, you know, he was taught the word of God from his youth.

Sure. By his mother. So this is, I mean, the primary, you know, means of the discipleship of youth. Not the only, but the primary means of discipleship was operating well with Timothy. Praise God for Timothy's mother and his grandmother who performed a role that was missing when the father...

Now everybody doesn't have a godly mother like Timothy did. So Timothy was, from all we can tell, in a local church. And what's in a local church? Spiritual fathers, spiritual mothers, spiritual grandmothers. Every fatherless boy, every fatherless girl, or motherless girl has such a treasure in the body of Christ because there in the body are all the people they never had or were deprived of by divorce or death or some tragedy.

The Church of Jesus Christ is configured so beautifully for the discipleship of youth, because it doesn't provide 13-year-olds for 13-year-olds. It provides spiritual fathers and mothers and grandmothers a rich relationship there. And that's really the only picture you have in the Bible from Genesis Revelation. So our question is, why would we want to do it any different than that? I think you're talking, to me there's a difference in unbiblical and abiblical.

To be unbiblical means it's a sin. To be abiblical, there are a lot of things not mentioned. For example, your documentary is not mentioned in scripture. So therefore, that was not the pattern of the early church, so therefore you shouldn't be producing documentaries based on that same logic of the road that you're headed down here. It would seem to me that you're talking about something that is abiblical because it's a method and there are methods that are not spoken of in the scripture that are still can be employed in order to reach the gospel.

Because if it is unbiblical, then we shouldn't be sitting here having this conversation tonight. It's because it would not be biblical because it's not spoken of. Do you see my point? Yeah, I see your point. And we get that question very vaguely.

Well, I bet you do because that's a good question. Yeah, it's a great question. So the proposition that we want to make is, is Scripture sufficient for the communication of the Gospel to the next generation? And so we have to ask a lot of questions. Like are microphones appropriate?

I think most of us would agree that microphones are not a violation of the actual methodology of Scripture because there's this desire to be a blessing, so that people can hear and things like that. But in the integrated church, Would that ever be a question? Is that a rhetorical question of whether or not we would analyze where microphones should be used or...? Sure, I think we should analyze everything we do in the church by scripture and to ask ourselves, does this allow us to fulfill biblical commands? Does it seem to be a departure?

And then there are often very difficult questions. We have all these new technologies. I don't believe that necessarily the Internet is something that should not be used. Obviously we use it because it's a way to communicate the gospel. But in the Church of Christ, they don't believe that you should use an instrument, that instrumentality is a sin.

Some do, yes, some do. The more liberal of the Church of Christ churches would. Yeah, right. So are we talking about something here, Scott, that's subjective, that you've made unsubjective, that is it a sin in the church to have youth ministry? Because I agree with some of what you're saying.

I don't agree with how far you've gone with it. Sure. I think you've taken it beyond scripture to the point that you've taken it. I agree with the problem. Sure.

But I don't think that you killed the patient because he has cancer. I think you cure the cancer. Sure. Okay, so here's how I would approach that. To add or subtract from Scripture is what we should be very careful with.

Now, when we say, I want to do it like Moses and Joshua and Joel and Nehemiah and Jesus and the Apostles. I want to do it like that. That's not adding to Scripture. That's just doing what's plain in Scripture. So, to add or subtract from Scripture, it should be our concern.

And you know what, Jerry, people regularly say, you are extreme, this is such a radically extreme view, how can you be so off the charts? We agree with some of the analyses, but how can you come with such a crazy, you know, outlandish solution? And here's what I'd just like to respond with. If you say we're extreme, you always have to ask, extreme compared to what? Extreme compared to balance.

And I would say extreme compared to Moses or Joshua or Jesus or the early church. But it's definitely extreme when you compare it to the modern church. Here's, as I looked at the movie, first of all, I thought it was a great documentary. I think it was a great job. And you know before the show we talked about that I came from it the agent a great I mean from a family church and got tremendous tremendous perspective when I was there on the reality that fathers and mothers need to take a significant look at their lives and say, what is the goal, number one of our lives?

Is it to live a happy, fun life? Is it to raise our children to have a happy fun life is it to be glorifying to god in all aspects of life six new this a premed the supreme aspects of scripture how far do we take it doesn't affect every area is you know all scripture all of life true in our lives or do we say it but we don't really follow. I mean all those things were so instrumental in looking at those things. I think the difficulty that I found going to that church, first of all I never left the church desiring to leave, I left the church because I moved out of the area, and I loved the pastor, I loved the people there. And there was a sincere desire to follow scripture with their lives and to challenge their children.

I was blown away by that aspect. But where I struggled was when there were, I think in some ways it becomes idealistic. From the perspective, I'll give you an example. I have 11 children. I am now a single father, raising nine of those 11 in the United States right now by myself.

Idealistically, I don't fit the mold anymore, because I can't homeschool my children. So I can no longer be idealistically following scripture from the means of where I saw that movement going. And it becomes an issue for me because here's the problem. I believe I'm going to continue to disciple my children. And my goal is to see my children someday, not just serving God, but serving them 20 times, 50 times, 100 times better than I do.

And I believe they will. I pray they move mountains, you know. But the reality is, homeschooling is seen as almost a mandate. Now, I don't think anybody, including you, would say it, you have to homeschool your children. But it's seen as the idealistic best approach, and when it doesn't happen, I think it's somewhat looked down upon.

Now, I'm saying it from my perspective. I'd love to know what your perspective is on that type of thing. Does a weed in the church, does it become an idealistic approach? What happens if tomorrow the entire youth group, let's say every church in America watched us tomorrow. And we literally, every church in America, shut down the youth groups.

What happens? Is that a positive thing? Have you accomplished what you're looking for? Or have we now a huge problem on our hands that we weren't looking for? Yeah, you do have a huge problem because so many would need to completely recalibrate their lives to try to more conform to what are biblical patterns.

And that doesn't happen overnight. Fathers don't just turn into the fathers that they ought to have been their whole lives. They need instruction. They need prayer. They need time.

We all are thankful we have even more time now, right, because of God's work in our lives. So when you extract what I call that weed in the church, a lot of things come bleeding and screaming out of it. But we have to rebuild foundations. You have to start somewhere. Right.

If you continue to corrupt the next generation by putting 13-year-olds of 13-year-olds, where will you be in 10 or 20 or 30 years? And what we found is that when you do pay the price to do that, that God blesses his own ways that are explicitly communicated in Scripture. Well, see, I think both of us would agree with much of what you're talking about. The problem is where you've drawn the line in the sand. Sure, yes.

Because then it becomes the debate no longer becomes the problem in the church. The debate becomes the extremity of your position. And that's unfortunate because there's so much to talk about, Scott, in the fact that there are, for example, age integration, or age segregation from the 50 plus. Many 50 plus are no longer welcome in the church. There should be intergenerational, the grandparents should be involved.

And that's a huge problem in the church today, and there's an over-emphasis on the youth. And so the question to me is how do we balance that, not kicking it all out and starting over. Sure. And Here's how I would encourage us to all approach that, and that is to start with Scripture alone. So what is the exegetical argument for separating people by age, by using life stage or age as a control factor for the discipleship of youth.

What is the explicit exegetical argument? I've given many exegetical arguments for age integration, But I actually haven't heard a credible exegetical argument with someone who is arguing from scripture alone. We can argue from pragmatism, from our own experience like I was saved in a youth group. Those are all interesting arguments that we should grapple with. But I want to suggest that the burden of proof lies with those who are promoting a segregated discipleship.

And where is that proof? You see, my struggle with that is if you take the model that you have described to me, then there's no end to where the logical argument is to you have to start throwing out practically everything, all the methods, everything we do, because none of them, if you say they're unbiblical, then there are hundreds, thousands of things that we do in the church that are methodology that are unbiblical if you call it unbiblical. If it's abiblical, in other words, it's not spoken of in the Bible, but it's not against the principles of the Bible, you can integrate that as a method to reach kids. I see the age integration, but I see it in balance and together with youth ministry, that there's accountability to the parents and the parents are involved in it, intergenerational, all of that I think is important, but I just feel you've taken it too far. Yeah, it all comes from the concept or The doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture argues that Scripture, well it's sufficient, you know, it's all we need for life and Godliness.

Like we don't need anything else, we don't need outside sources, God has given everything that we need. The Bible is enough. But the modern church doesn't think the Bible is enough. I don't have time to challenge that. I think you're right to a point.

A Weed in the Church is the book and it's available at the bookstores. Sure, and on Amazon and you can get an e-bug. And on Amazon you can get the book anywhere. It would be a very good read. I would encourage you to read it and form your opinions of how you feel about it.

And Scott, thank you very much for being on the program with us. I appreciate it. I've enjoyed the discussion. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

When we return, you're going to hear a different perspective on youth ministry from parents and current youth pastors. And you don't want to miss what they had to say about the film Divided. And our prayer lines, again, are still open. So call us at 888-235-9907 and let our Care Force prayer partners pray for and with you tonight. That's 888-235-9907.

We'll be right back. Stay tuned. You know, we knew tonight's program was going to present a rather controversial point of view. Youth ministry is a deeply ingrained part of most churches around the country. And new ideas tend to ruffle the feathers of the establishment.

And that's not to say all new ideas should be embraced. But certainly some should obviously be thought about, discussed, and debated. And you just heard one point of view from Divided's executive producer, Scott Brown. Well, we wanted to hear other points of view as well, and to that end, last week we brought in a panel of parents, youth workers, and pastors, and all have seen the documentary Divided, and Greg discussed it with them. Here's that conversation.

Do you agree or disagree with the premise of the movie? I thought the premise was simplistic in that it presumed a nuclear family with a father present to take this role. In my experience is that one, there are families where the father may be present but not spiritually walking with God and wanting to take the role, desiring to be in a leadership role, are two, the fathers aren't present. And the second dynamic is not all people who come to church, if we're really reaching out and evangelizing, come as a family. So we're gonna get some converted young people at church and they need somebody as a role model.

And somebody to take that role of leadership. I'm a little confused too as far as what do they think about a pastor because the pastor's taking that role too. Why does it stop at a youth pastor? The church itself is a collective that comes together. We're all broken, broken people being made better by the Holy Spirit and enabling each other, helping each other through that process.

So to just narrow it down and say, oops, no, you just got a pastor and the dad, to me, it's fundamentally flawed in its thinking. Well, I think when we look at what we see in Scripture, it's not a simplistic model and we have to understand that it grew up out of the milieu of Judaism, which had a unique character to it in and of itself, where some kids would have been sent off to a school and a synagogue and other schools would have been raised up as apprentices under, you know, other individuals. And while the movie intends to say that there's no scriptural evidence for people being isolated from their parents, we do see that sort of thing take place in a number of key instances with people like Timothy or probably the Apostle John or Elisha or Samuel, just to name a few. We're not saying that that's what we should do, but we're saying that to make the argument that Scripture says nothing about specific ministry to specific young people I don't think takes the totality of scripture into account new ideas oftentimes are attacked by present establishment Is there anything worthwhile in the idea that parents or fathers should be?

Exclusive spiritual leaders for their family well, I am a father so I can say the role of father, even God as father, is extremely important. And I think the movie did a very good job of saying fathers, you need to sort of step up, You need to lead. And I totally agree with that. 100% fathers need to lead. I need to be a spiritual leader of my family.

Now, I'm not so prideful to say that I got it all. Because I don't. Are you sure? I'm pretty sure. Pretty sure I don't.

Actually, my... You can ask your kid. My four and a half year old daughter, my oldest is four and a half and she'd already let you know that daddy's not perfect. Very clearly I'll let you know that. But because I love my daughter, I need to let others in.

I was in a situation of being a divorced mom with two kids growing up in the youth ministry. And what I found with my kids being involved in the youth ministry is that their connection to their peers and their peers as families. So what my son was able to experience was a father and a mother in a wonderful home environment, and those parents became my kids' parents. You know, in the absence of my ex-husband, the father of that family stepped in and became a father to my son, and I could throw a couple of names out, and some of you guys would actually know who they are. They invested in my kids.

They invested in my daughter's life. And I think that was so precious and that was one of the greatest benefits I think my kids experienced outside of the leadership of the pastors and the teaching that they did receive and the fun stuff. I have to say they had a lot of fun. Well that kind of speaks to the role of the youth group because I have some neighbors, very wonderful people. They're not particularly spiritual but their daughter did seek out that particular relationship and came to our youth group and did bond with the kids more deeply than perhaps she did with some of her school peers.

And again, nothing against her parents, you know, very wonderful family, but they just weren't spiritual. And she had desired that. And because of the youth group, she did have an opportunity to experience that. You know, it talks about 80% of the youth today will not be in church when they're grown. The movie talks about that, I think it was a Barna study.

That shows to me, if that's an accurate statement, a significant flaw somewhere. So my question would be, what is that flaw? Is it the youth group? Is it something else that we are able to pin on the youth group? What is it that causes 80% of children to leave the church?

I believe a big part of it is the hypocrisy that they see in the home. Is the hypocrisy in the home. I have personally sat with hundreds of young people down through 20 years of ministry. And over and over again, you hear, well, Pastor Tracy, that's what you teach here. And that's what my parents say here.

But at home, It's a different story. That is a problem, as you were saying. That is a problem. You learn to ask questions before you give answers. But the hypocrisy, honestly, is probably the biggest problem with the church, period.

Adults are having the same problem. People are coming to church, they're experiencing things that are contrary to what we say we believe, or even what we say Jesus taught. And we teach Jesus so strongly, and we're Jesus. And then our lifestyles and the way we go about things, the way we handle people, our unforgiveness and all the other things that go with it. It's just a, it's a mess that can be cleaned up, but it's going to take a lot of honesty.

We're about to lose two of our people with some older children, so I want to ask you a quick question before you go. After seeing the movie, and obviously you both sent your kids to Youth Group, Did the movie change your perspective at all on youth groups? Would you have changed the direction you went with your kids in sending them to youth group as they were growing up? Rich, we'll start with you. Well, I would say that it did not change my opinion in regard to youth groups.

It probably confirmed that I could have done a better job as a parent and all of us, I think if we had a second go at it, would approach it with more seriousness and maybe make a greater effort there as opposed to the effort we put into our careers and other activities but I'm thankful to God for the for the adults that invested in my kids and my kids so look back very fondly with some of the people that were their youth leaders. And so, you know, there are pluses and minuses, but overall it was a very positive experience. Okay. Sybil. Yeah, I agree with Rich.

There were pluses and minuses. When I first watched the documentary, I first said, oh yeah, I agree with what they're saying, but then I had to step back and think, you know, what did my kids benefit from it? And as I shared earlier, they benefit from having other families to step in and help me when I was doing it by myself. So, yeah, there were benefits. If I do it again, if I had to do it all over again, I definitely would.

But I think I probably would be a little bit more involved. As a single parent having to work, sometimes it was a little difficult, but I think I would try my best to be a little bit more involved with them. Good. Thank you. What ways do you see the youth group being an important part of the church on the whole.

I think it gives the youth a voice. So many times when you amongst adults, you don't, they feel like they don't have a voice. The adults, they don't get it. They're not listening to me. They don't understand me.

When you bring them into an environment with their peers and with leaders who understand the youth culture and can speak the language but still be an adult, not be super cool and want to be like the kids, but they feel a safe environment, then they want to talk about the issues, what's going on, the teen pregnancies, the sex, the drugs, the drinking. And they don't feel like they'll be, They don't feel like you'll come down on them, but you'll be honest with them. Kids crave honesty. They don't crave you to be perfect. They want you to be real.

They want you to be honest. So when you can come to a kid and say, this is my perspective, this is what Christ says about it. For a lot of times, they just hear from their parents, don't do it, it's wrong. They don't understand why it's wrong or where is it found in the Bible. When you break it down to them like that, then they feel open to come to you with problems.

And then, as a youth leader, you have to open up the communications between them and their parents so you don't just give them the answer without saying, well, how does your parent feel about this? And a lot of times they said, I can't talk to my parent about it. What would you like for me to go with you to explain with your parent? Or just to open up the dialogue so then they can talk? Well, I know personally the youth group has been vital in my family.

Even Last night I went to pick up my 15 year old after youth group. We got in the car and I said, so how did things go tonight? She said they went great and she said, you know what, it was a really good sermon tonight. And I said, what did they talk about? She said, well, they really spoke into my life tonight.

She said they were talking about having mercy on someone that doesn't deserve it and she was going through a situation where she needed to probably give some forgiveness. Now I've told her a million times you've got to forgive, you've got to love, you've got to have mercy, you've got to have grace, and I hope I modeled that before her. But just to have the youth group, you know, who spoke last night, in essence come alongside me and agree with me, not even knowing, to reinforce it exactly, was just awesome. And she said, you know what, mom, she said, I love going to youth group because every time I'm going through something when I go there they tend to speak exactly what I need to hear and she said they don't necessarily know what's going on She goes to a very large youth group, so they don't necessarily know, you know, from day to day what's going on in her life. But because of that, you know, it opened a dialogue and she and I were able to talk about the situation in her life, which we had talked about previously, but She was able to see it from a different perspective.

I know growing up myself, I would go to my parents, first and foremost, to this day I do. But there's something about then being able to be around people going through similar circumstances. They're your age, They're your peers, whoever, but they can relate more. So to have the different perspectives, but ultimately, well God's on top, but my parents still fell second in line. I hope we can do the same for our child.

I believe youth ministry serves as a bridge. I really had a problem with our documentary here because it seemed as though it was the parent or the family as God created it to be and the youth ministry was opposed to that. And that troubled me because youth ministry can serve to be a beautiful bridge. It gives opportunity and I really encourage parents to take advantage of that learning from the youth leaders as well because there are some things they can open your mind to concerning your child, that your child will never tell you, they'll never share with you. There are some things kids will, youth especially, will never go to their parent about unless they're encouraged to do so.

Um, Pat, what do you think the effect would be if starting tomorrow all youth ministry in America closed down? Confusion. Do you believe fathers would step up because youth group was shut down? No. Mothers, fathers, whatever.

I don't think it's a youth group problem. I think it's a, and it's not just a church problem, it's a big system problem. It's a nationwide issue. I do feel that the people that would suffer the most are the kids that don't have a parent that loves the Lord living in their house. I feel like they're the ones that would be most affected if all youth ministries closed tomorrow.

And then I think that the other necessary outcome is that parents probably won't have the opportunity to be exposed to the depth of teaching that they can when they know that their kids are getting something that's age appropriate for them. If the senior pastor then has to try to say something that will speak to an audience of adults as well as teens and adolescents. I think those would be some of the really significant changes that would take place. The film did bring up some really good points as far as the family unit, well they said the father leading. However it's leaving out a lot.

It's leaving out all of the single parents Who are led by women? Who maybe they're new to the faith, how can you teach what you don't know? So if they need help and a lot of times I know at the church I attend, the youth are so in love with the youth ministry that they're so on fire, they'll go home to an unsafe parent and the parents like, I need to come see what's going on cause you want to go to church on a Wednesday, you know, and so that brings them to Christ because they're curious and they see a ministry that loves their children so much and puts so much into them. Well, let me see what this Christ is all about. And then they become saved.

So you will lose a whole generation of people to come to the Lord if you take out youth ministries. Because a lot of them come through their children. And that's just where I want to say, wait, be careful, because I don't want to, because they had some good things to say. Yeah, they did. And I can watch a video and like, some stuff I was like, man, this is sort of offensive, like I don't like this.

But, you know, I can always sort of owe them some gratitude because what they've done is they open a dialogue, a conversation. And we don't have much of that going on right now. Like, you know, I have my church that I go to. You guys have your church that you go to. I've never met any of these people before.

And we need so much more of this in the church. You know, I know, throw some bad ideas out there. You know, maybe not a bad idea, but an idea that maybe I'm not used to that makes me a little uncomfortable, like we talked about a question earlier. And make me think. And open up some dialogue.

You know, let ministry be as messy as it really, really is, and get churches united together, and not even divided, but we can say, you know, we're believers, we disagree, but we're finally talking. I just want to thank you all for being here today. It's been great to get your input and the information you brought to the table on the movie Divided. Thank you for coming. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Very interesting.

And Greg, thank you. Very good job. But it appears to me that really what we're saying here is integrated within the context of the Church to bring together the body of christ as there is a problem we'll be right back with more safety welcome back uh... That they're great it almost appears to me that, maybe I'm wrong, that one of the things we're hearing here is ministry outside the church, more of the home group movement that's moving outside the church and so that all the teaching, a little bit of isolationism? Am I wrong in that feeling?

Yeah, I think it's a possible reality of what people that aren't really seeing the family integrated movement is seeing. I think the documentary did a phenomenal job of bringing up a very valid and detrimental point. It's a huge issue in the church. We have 80% of our youth leaving the church. It's something that has to be resolved, but I think the application, the question is, how do we come to a conclusion of how to deal with that?

The issue I see, and based upon talking with Scott, which I thought brought some very valid points. Very valid. And as well as the panel, the pastors that completely disagreed with the application of how we deal with the issue, is we have a significant problem and that is the fathers and the mothers in the home are not discipling their children. That I believe, if we can solve that issue in the church, I believe that's the issue we need to figure out. Which I believe is what Scott's saying as well, but I think what the church on the whole, the evangelical church is saying is, the youth group is a way to solve it.

Scott's saying the home is a way to solve it. I think there has to be a balance between the two of them in some way. So... I think that's where I'm coming from with this. That's what I think has to happen.

It's not one or the other. It's an integration of both to bring them together in a way with the older members of the church, intergenerational, integrated, and that the youth ministries and churches would be very, very accountable. Accountability, absolutely. The accountability, I think, would be absolutely important. Absolutely.

It's vital. We have some prayer requests. Raina from San Mateo, California, prayed for her soulmate. Nakia, Richmond, California, Needs prayer for peace in his mind as he and his son are going through changes right now. Especially a big move on the 6th, and we will pray for them.

Minerva from Daly City, California, out by the airport, the International Airport in San Francisco. Prayers for her great children and great grandchildren, especially the teens who are going through so much that it isn't particularly healthy. And Mary from Chicago, her sister-in-law passed away on Sunday, and she needs prayer that she's strong enough to continue to praise God as she tries to help that family through a rough time. Greg? We've also got Hilda from San Jose, California, healing for her, her son, and two daughters.

Martha from California, healing for herself and her daughter. Cynthia from Alameda, California, prayer for finances. And then Josephine from Haywood, California, prayer for strength and wisdom to deal with her alcoholic husband. Let's pray for all of these. Father, right now we just lift up every one of these problems, these situations, whether they're emotional, Lord, whether it's prayer for strength, whether it's problems in the family, with a spouse, children, sickness, Lord, emotional, financial, we just lift up every one of these needs in Jesus' precious name.

And Father, we know, Lord, that You can meet every need, and that You know every hurt, You know every pain, You know every anxiety, You know every fear. And in Jesus' name, we pray that You'll move into every situation and touch hearts and lives, Father, by Your power, Lord Jesus, by Your power, and we thank You for it. We just pray for every one of these people. Give them peace, or the peace that passes all understanding through Christ Jesus, and we thank You for it. In Your name, Lord.

Amen. Amen. Now, we want you to believe that God is going to do something, and I talk a lot about expectation. And when we pray, sometimes we just don't expect anything. We pray, we walk away, we don't expect God to do anything.

So expect God to do something in your life tonight, in the life of that loved one that you prayed for. And God can make a difference. He really can make a big difference in your life if you will allow Him to. And if you allow the Holy Spirit just to minister peace to you and a sense of confidence and trust which leads to a sense of authority because you know who God is and you know what he can do. So expect God to do something tonight.

Thanks for the panel. I appreciate you putting that together. It was a lot of fun. And The whole panel did a great job, so thank you very much for it. It's a very interesting topic, and one that I think obviously warrants discussion within the context of the church.

We're Living in a time when there's a lot of change, we're looking at a lot of things in the church and analyzing it to see if in fact that's the best way to achieve God's purposes in people's lives. And I think that's positive. But I think one of the things that we need to look at is what kind of balance can we offer. And I think the word unbiblical to abiblical are two important words. So again, thanks for being with us on the program tonight.

Thanks for having us. Thank you for being with us. God bless you, and we'll see you next week right here on TLN Now.