In the youth groups that I’ve helped run, we’ve seen an interesting thing happen—let’s call it the “just show up principle”. It seems that in many of our churches all the youth need to do is to simply attend, and most people are satisfied. Here are the words of a young man in grade 12 during my time in Vancouver, “It didn’t take much for us to impress the adults. Before you changed things all we had to do was to show up to church once in a while and everyone was happy. If we did anything in the service everyone was ecstatic!” This is the ‘just show up principle’ that seems to be common in churches. If the youth simply show up, everyone thinks something big is going on. These same churches then scratch their heads and wonder why a large number of youth stop going to church after a few years or develop into spiritually malnourished adults.

It is crucial that good youth ministry changes this. We must place expectations of godliness on the youth (reading the Bible and putting it into practice, coming to youth group regularly, going to church, loving the newcomer etc.) and strive to see 1 Timothy 4:12 & 2 Timothy 2:22 in action. This has always been my goal. And, as I’ve done this, I’ve seen two different responses. One response is that a number of young people rise to the occasion and actually walk the walk, take Jesus seriously and grow in their faith. However, there is another response from the youth—and opposite reaction to growing in their faith. Many youth don’t actuall