If ever there was a time when Adventist youth and young adults were under extreme attack from the dark side, it is today.

Never before in Earth’s history has the evil one had more influence over a generation than this one. A few examples:

Media Influences

a. Film/Movies

b. Television/Values/Pop Culture

c. Music/Dance

d. Spiritualism

Family Challenges

a. Divorce

b. Time for Family Worship

c. Money/Materialism

Internet Challenges

a. Pornography

b. Gaming

c. Gambling

Health Challenges

a. Pre-marital Sex

b. Illegal Drugs/Alcohol

c. Homosexuality

d. Eating Disorders

Entertainment Challenges

a. Clubbing

b. Fashion/Dress/Modesty

c. Fantasy Novels

Satan's list to compromise and then destroy our youth and young adults in the 21st century goes on and on. And, if we are not careful, we can become discouraged and feel like giving up; but we are not quitters. We serve a victorious God. We can do all things through His strength. He gives us hope.

But, it is important to look at the facts. As reported this past summer at the St. Louis General Conference Session by Jan Paulsen, “You have thirty-five to forty percent of the number baptized who are leaving the church” (Adventist World, December, 2005). The percentage of loss for our youth and young adults is even greater … most suspect.

If the Adventist Church was a public company, trading on the New York Stock Exchange, and you were a stockholder of this company called The Adventist Church, see how you would react to this make-believe story.

Let's say at a recent annual shareholder's meeting the board chairperson reported that over 51 percent of your company’s customers were leaving after age 17. Would the stockholders react by a moment of silence, then continue their business as usual?

Or, if this story really took place in the public world, could you visualize stockholders all stirred up, wanting answers for the loss of such important customers? Could you visualize the chairperson calling special committees to address this topic? Could you see the chairperson calling for the company’s resources to be reassigned for research and development of new programs and products to hold these important customers?

The stockholders are you and me—members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The chairpersons are also you and me. We are the leaders in our local churches. We sit on church boards and committees. We have influence where our personal offerings go and where church assets are spent. We are the church.

There is a phrase many physical education instructors use to motivate students to exercise—Use Them, or Lose Them. “Let not the youth be ignored,” Ellen White counsels us. “Let them share in the labor and responsibility. Let them feel that they have a part to act in helping and blessing others” (Testimonies, Vol. 6, p. 435).

The best days are ahead for Lake Union Conference youth ministry because this union values its youth and young adults. We are blessed with many effective ministries now, but we seek more effective ministry opportunities in the future.

Let us all pray and work for the salvation of “our,” or is it “His” youth. As local church leaders make plans for 2006, let us pray for new and more effective ways to involve the youth and young adults in ministry.

If you have input and/or suggestions to make youth ministry in the Lake Union Conference more effective, contact Ron Whitehead, Lake Union Conference youth ministry coordinator, by cell phone: (269) 208-1344; by home phone: (269) 473-1516; or by e-mail: PastorRon@andrews.edu.

Ron Whitehead is the Lake Union Conference youth ministry coordinator.