Dealing with Church Hopping...

I got an e-mail the other day from a fellow youth worker who is fairly new to the game. He ran into a situation where a student who is very involved in another youth ministry visited His midweek program. The student made the comment, "This youth group is way cooler than mine," and gave indication of possibly coming more often.

My friend figured I've run into this situation before, and wanted some insight on how I deal with it.

Below is an edited version (to protect any identification) of what I replied:

Yes, I've dealt with this quite a bit. When a student makes that comment, I say, "Wow, I think I'll take that as a compliment. You know, our goal is to see students connect with a passionate relationship with Christ. I think any youth group that desires that is pretty cool."

When your ministry is healthy and growing, you're going to start getting kids that will want to "church hop."

Some of those kids will be invited by your kids. You've got to fight this type of "Evangelism".

Some things to make clear to your students... Pound it in their head:

1.) We're concerned with the spiritually dead and lost. This isn't about us getting Christian kids from other Youth Groups to come to our Church. That actually will hinder our cause. There are people living a life separated from God, and if all we are doing is trying to convince people to jump from one lifeboat to the next, we're wasting our energy.

2.) When it comes to growth, we are most concerned with Kingdom Growth. They don't need to come to our church. We just want to see passionate Christ followers involved in a church body that is also passionate about a relationship with Christ.


Now, when you have a student who wants to come from another church, you're usually dealing with one of two students:

Student #1 - Hungry and wanting to grow. Current Youth Group is frustrating them, or there is no Youth Ministry at all at their church.
Student #2 - Looking for the "cool thing." All my friends are here. Hot guys/hot girls are what I want. This is clearly the place to be.

Sometimes the two are mixed a little together.

When I talk with students who seem to be highly involved in another church, but start coming to our Wednesday Night Program, here's the things I encourage them toward.

1.) It's a family decision. If the student's family is involved in another church, this should be clearly discussed by the family.
2.) Communicate Intention. Make it very clear to the student that your ministry interested in pushing students toward a passionate relationship with Christ, not just being a social club and popularity contest. If their not up for that, they really shouldn't consider getting involved.
3.) The danger of "Split time." Emphasize that Wednesday Night is only a part of the package. Referring back to #1, the student will likely have to keep attending with family on Sunday. This is dangerous and disjointed for the student.

-- end of e-mail--
Of course, this entire issue can be really ugly, and tends to produce a lot of tension; especially between larger and smaller churches. The reality is that in my past 10 years at NMC, I could point you toward several students who left NMC to attend a different church and its youth ministry, and it was much to their spiritual benefit. In these stories, I rejoice. I would hope in all cases my brothers and sisters in Christ will do the same.

In the end, my bottom line is that I'm concerned how much of our "Spiritual Success Stories" in the American church involve church hoppers instead of unchurched, unspiritual individuals. I'm pointing the finger at myself on this point as well.