The speaker addresses criticisms of the film Divided for suggesting that youth ministry is the cause of the mass exodus of youth from the Church, and clarifies that the real cause is a lack of trust in scripture and resulting disobedience. The root cause of the problem is a lack of appreciation for the details in the Word of God, and a preference for modern traditions. The speaker lists a number of things that have contributed to the youth crisis, including the preaching of a false gospel, homes out of order, fathers neglecting their roles, churches out of order, hypocritical parents, and a famine of the preaching of the Word of God. The message of Divided is that the Bible can be trusted for the discipleship of youth, and that the modern Church has set aside Scripture and done something foreign to it, which contradicts it.

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.