I’ve got a big problem with Christian youth groups.

Here are four reasons why I don't like them. It could go up to fifty by the end of this chapter, but for now … we’ll keep it at four.

Number one. In my experience, youth groups are lame. When I first got saved, I was twenty-one and a college student. So I was advised to go to “the College Group” that our church had. So I did, and it was weird. Most of the guys and girls that were there were there for social reasons, not because they were hungry for God. It was more like a fraternity/sorority vibe with a dove and a fish sticker stamped on it, versus a Holy Ghost, basic training bootcamp, cranking out demon-smashing world-changers.

I got bored with it quickly. It was cheeky and insulting to my intellect and my biblical masculinity. It reeked of effeminate salvation egoism. It served up sweet nothings, and I needed spiritual meat, not pablum.

When I got saved, I had already lived nine lives. The college Christians I met were now getting tempted by what I had been doing and pushing when I was an early teen. I had nearly ten years of heavy partying, dope-dealing, getting arrested, and shooting at people, and I, as a youth, needed discipleship, not pizza and a corny story. As a young man, I wanted older men and women of God to mentor me, not dippy, unsaved evangelical peers.

While I was doing time at the college group, I was evangelizing my rowdy previous partying buddies. So, as I was told to do, I brought them to the college group. My unwashed friends were accomplished athletes, motocross champions, drug dealers, hell raisers, and chick magnets. They, too, had experienced more crap in a short timespan than most adults do in a lifetime. Because they were so stunned by my conversion, they’d come with me to our meetings to see what all the buzz was about. That was a big mistake on my part. I should never have brought them there. They were entrenched with demonic spirits, had serious strongholds, massive problems with the Church, and serious questions about faith that needed sober answers for their dilemmas. One buddy, who finally caved and joined me at our meeting, was met with a game night when he arrived. I’ll never forget the look he gave me of, “you’ve got to be blanking kidding me, man”. He was dealing with inordinate wealth for a dude his age–cars, toys, boats, and babes, and I finally got him to come to something that was supposed to represent God and he gets hit with playing Scrabble with wussy Christian guys and nerdy girls? He never darkened that door again.

Number two. Most youth groups function as places to get your demonic kid off your shoulders and out of the house so you can swill wine and watch a tawdry series on Netflix. Face it … it ain’t about making certain your kid knows, understands, and can recite Westminster's Shorter Catechism. They’re not learning the Apostle’s Doctrine, Systematic Theology, and a Biblical Worldview. Oh, no señorita. They’re getting plied with sugar drinks, processed foods, and a big dose of “Jesus is Cool!” by the quasi-male youth pastor named Crispin.

Our kids never, and I mean never, went to any form of children's church. They sat with my wife when I preached, in the front row, and raised zero hell during the services. We worshipped as a family. They weren’t sent packing after worship to some disease-infested barrack to do flannel graphs. Nope. We worshipped together.

In addition, when we would entertain at our house when they were young, we purposefully included them. As wee lassies, they were a part of conversations with world leaders, rock stars, political heavyweights, diplomats, doctors, lawyers, professional hunters, entertainers, activists, pastors, theologians, missionaries, entrepreneurs, and epic blue-collar regular good old boys and girls. My wife and I never fluffed off our responsibility for their spiritual growth to some twenty-two-year-old youth pastor from Tulsa. By the way, and biblically speaking, what is a “youth pastor?” It’s not in the scripture. Is there also a “youth apostle?” What about a “youth prophet?” Here's an FYI for those who trade in those nomenclatures: A pastor is either an ascension-gifted, Ephesians 4 pastor, or they are not. Period. And that calling is to the entire church, not just to Hannah Montana.

Number three. Youth groups are unbiblical. Earth to the trendy youth groups: Whatever you’re doing does not exist in the Old Testament or the New Testament. Show me one verse that stumps for age segregation in the Bible, and I will Riverdance in Borat’s thong to an extended cut of The Doors smash hit, Riders On The Storm. If you need a great book that points out the unbiblical nature of youth groups, I dare you to read A Weed in The Church: How a culture of age segregation is harming the next generation, fragmenting the family, and dividing the church., by Scott Brown.

Number four. Speaking about age segregation, youth groups have that down in spades. They remove spiritually deficient young people from sage Holy Ghost warriors who’ve been there and done that and have many demonic scalps hanging in their man-caves and she-sheds. Christian youth need seasoned men and women of God to disciple them and show them life’s ropes, not their pusillanimous peers who don’t know their head from their backside.

It’s weird that the Bible champions the older schooling the younger, and yet your typical American church removes the older from the younger and tosses their tutelage to an over-ebullient twentysomething. The discipleship and mentoring of young people was the duty of older generations. They’re the ones that the fresh squabs were to get their biblical wisdom, character, and faith stories from.

To be continued ...

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Doug Giles is Pastor of Liberty Fellowship in Wimberley, TX, and is the founder of ClashDaily.com​

Follow Doug on Instagram and Twitter @TheArtOfDoug.

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