I’m attending my first Catalyst conference this week.
For me it’s a mixed bag…
After the first day I can honestly say that the leaders, and the quality of their messages, have been well worth the price of admission. I’m a learner at heart… so having the chance to hear from some of the top Christian thinkers, authors, pastors, leaders, etc., is the upside of this experience.
The down side?
The crowds and the pace.
I’m a much bigger fan of retreats over conferences… with much more built-in space for silence and solitude… quiet corners for conversations… opportunities to connect with the presenter/s… and I don’t anticipate much of this here.
Nonetheless, I’m expecting good things from my time here in Atlanta!
One of the most notable highlights for me, today, was a session I sat in on that was led by Alan Hirsch. He was a fun, funny, quirky Australian with a strong accent — even though he’s relocated to L.A. — and he was dialed in from word one.
The part of his presentation that most hit home to me was when he started to talk about the high percentage of high school students (he said 80%, but I’ve heard as high as 90%) that head off to college with a “strong” faith and end up throwing in the towel during their years on campus.
Why does this happen?
Alan used the aquarium as a metaphor for the kind of environment (church/youth group) that most high school graduates leave in coming to the university. It’s an environment characterized by:
- safety
- no/low risk
- control
- no/low challenge
- a near perfect equilibrium
It is this kind of artificial environment that forces its inhabitants into an untested way of living and renders them unable to survive in more challenging environments.
Although Alan did not go into remedies, there are a few that come to mind… a few ways that churches/youth groups might re/consider the way they approach their work with young people:
- expose students to some of the struggles of life that they might typically be shielded from
- give students increasing levels of responsibility — of varying kinds
- challenge the status quo — push students beyond the safe, cliché answers and experiences
- deal with the raw, painful issues of their lives — student live with so much weight
If we want to see students’ faith “survive” the college years — which really should define and shape those years — we need to re/think about how we’re preparing them for those critical years.
There’s no formula to how this can/should happen… but I think the statistics demand that we take an honest assessment of what we’re doing, its effectiveness, and willingly make the necessary changes.
Those are my thoughts… what are yours?
