Now, any Church that neglects its youths or attends to them with half-heartedness does so at its own peril. That Church is merely postponing the evil day. And it will surely bounce back at the Church like a boomerang. And looking at the state of today’s youth, what the Church can only do now is to embark upon a recovery mission. The time they would have taken preventive measures has long passed. The world has taken advantage of the Church’s levity and perfunctoriness towards the spiritual and moral health of youths in the 21st Century Church and penetrated the camp.

 

The consequence is that the youths which the Church has most lamentably over-starved with the living Word of Truth have begun to stretch their hands across the dwarf walls of the Church to receive fatally contaminated dainties of the world and worldly “Churches”.

 

The bad news today is that the sweet delicacies of the world has already gone past the throats of many youths in Church. All that is left for the Church to do now is to force its long, rescue fingers down their throats so they could throw up and vomit out the world’s poisonous dainties and live! And immediately after, the Church should waste no time in now unceasingly stuffing their mouths and stomachs with the life-saving manna. “….. But while men slept, (the) enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.” (Matthew 13:25).

 

But was the Church sleeping when the enemy penetrated? Not at all. Their eyes were wide open. They were simply non-charlant. They underestimated the world. They believed so much that the little grains they were carelessly throwing to their youths would prove more attractive than the world’s generous distribution of meretricious delicacies. Now that it has happened, now that the world has appeared wiser than the children of light, lamentations have rent the air. In fact the lamentations started long ago. In the 1930s, Dr. Edwin Sangster — scholar, theologian, author and Head of Methodism’s Home Mission, published a book he called, Can Methodism Re-born? In the book he mourned: “We are combating some thing deep in the soul of the nation.

 

For this deep malady, we need some deep X-ray therapy, that we have not found.” And then he issued a score-sheet: “Last year, Church members in Methodism fell lower than for thirteen years, and no less than 100,000 children ceased to attend Sunday schools. Every year for the last twelve years the number of ministers has declined; it fell by 276 in the past year”. This was in Britain in the 1930s. Now, what is the situation like now? “….. But while men slept, (the) enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.” (Matthew 13:25).