Friday, February 17, 2012

"I left the church when I was 17"

When we were still doing interest meetings for Ridge Church I remember quoting this alarming statistic that 85-90% of high school seniors that grew up in church would leave the church as soon as they graduated and most would never return. The number one reason why?--"the church and her message was judgmental and not relevant to life". That bothered me so much that it literally shaped much of how our church functions. We are passionate about creating environments that would capture the hearts of a generation teaching them how to apply God's word to every day life and equipping them to pursue Jesus even beyond high school or college. We also wanted to work hard to create environments where the "85-90%" would one day, maybe even as adults, come back and find the church and message of Jesus to be more relevant than they ever knew it could be. I share this because Nicole's baptism story is evidence that IT IS WORKING! This is our mission in action!: