To capture young minds and hearts

IF there’s one thing that religion and the mass media have in common in South Africa, it’s the problem of getting the attention and interest of the 16-24 age group.

For most mainstream churches this is an old problem. When I look back at my matric class at Pretoria’s Christian Brothers College in 1960, I recall attending a reunion a few years after leaving school and finding that the vast majority of my Catholic classmates simply didn’t go to church anymore.

As far as the mass media are concerned, this problem is pretty much a new phenomenon. Research data shows that just about every medium imaginable — radio, television, newspapers and magazines — has a declining 16-24 year old audience.

What the media are finding is probably what churches have known for a long time. Youths simply get bored with routine and things like depressing current affairs, man’s inhumanity to man, and news bulletins proving just how efficiently and comprehensively adults are making a mess of the world.

I would guess, however, that from the points of view of both church and mass media, our young people just don’t like having to listen to adults tell them how to behave, and what to like and what to dislike.

I am not suggesting that this group is anti-establishment, renegade or ungodly. I think kids today are a wonderful bunch on the whole. They always have been — after all, weren’t we adults all once kids? And, my goodness, weren’t we wonderful?

I just think many of them find going to church boring. Just as they find most newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations boring.

Notice though, they don’t find cellphones and sending masses of SMSs to each other boring at all. They all have their own digital social networks now and can happily talk to each other, see each other, exchange news, opinions and ideas with each through Facebook, Twitter, Mxit and all manner of new and fascinating communications media.

To give an idea of just how successful cellphones have been in terms of capturing the imagination of this elusive market: the people at Multichoice, who operate DStv in South Africa, logged well over 1,5million ringtone downloads and personalised cellphone logos within two years of launching this service.

And what they’re excited about is that, according to research, this youth market spends about R8 billion a year.

But how on earth can this be of any interest to churches in their quest to maintain the interest of this group? Well, I think churches and religious organisations would do well to keep an eye on what the media are doing to bring these lost sheep back into their particular folds.

They might learn some interesting strategies and just what is topical in terms of appealing to this young group. The Southern Cross is very busy right now developing digital media to reach more of our youth and a greater proportion of Catholics in general, but churches need to start responding to what might appear to be the pointless, trivial needs of young people, instead of just condemning them. They need to find out what is so appealing about cellphones and the concepts of the SMS, Twitter, Facebook and other media instead of clucking away in disgust and shaking their adult heads at what they see as stupid and fruitless pursuits.

I believe churches need to start employing basic principles of effective communication if they’re serious about keeping kids interested in going to church. And this is based on the premise that is is totally unimportant what priests and church elders want to say to the kids, but very important what the kids want to hear, to get them excited about churches and religion again.

Perhaps youth activity in churches has to go beyond youth groups and youth Masses. Evidently only a minority of youth actually find these appealing.

Perhaps our religious leaders have to realise that the majority of church services are created and designed specifically for adults.

Finding the ultimate answers is extremely difficult, and I certainly don’t have them. If I did, I would not be writing this column from my modest home, but rather from my own island in the Bahamas, because the answers the churches should be looking for are the same as those business and the mass media are seeking. And it is by no means easy.

The problem is that young people themselves don’t know the answers. So, we adults have to keep looking, keep experimenting, keep praying, and most of all just keep on trying, until we find the solution.

Right now, we’re not even close.  And this is too important an issue to ignore.