Creating a Research Profile

Researchers and youth evangelists such as Baucham (2007) argue that most young people are leaving the church after completing high school. They claim that the youth ministry has failed to keep the American youth in church when they join college. Youth ministry experts and writers such as Barna (1991) and Lytch (2004) also agree that people who are committed to regular church attendance as teenagers stop doing so when they enter adulthood. Based on these statistics, there have been calls to abolish the youth ministry or implement a major paradigm shift. Although the youth ministry has been facing some challenges, it is important to examine the basis of the criticism.