When the young man complained to his up, the doctor asked about environmental exposures to allergens. He answered, “Sure. I was playing bass guitar for the youth service and the fog machines were too close to me, but I didn’t notice because of the laser lights.”

It doesn’t seem that long ago when “youth ministry” involved setting up folding metal chairs in the church basement. There were jugs of fruit punch and a flannel graph easel in the corner from a children’s Sunday School class. The Betty Lukens flannel graphs were just waiting to be rearranged, even provocatively, by bored teens waiting for their youth pastor to appear.

Technology, it would seem, has brought us into another Renaissance, and today’s newest gadget is destined to be tomorrow’s doorstop or paperweight. Conventional wisdom suggests that for the church to stay relevant—the new litmus test to determine the church’s intrinsic worth—we constantly must integrate this new technology into church life. As the argument goes, if we cannot compete with the “world,” then our message to young people today will be relegated to the white noise of their ever-decreasing attention spans. Therefore, the danger is that gospel white noise still becomes noise, barely discernable above the constant hum of technology surrounding our young people.

I just don’t buy it anymore. Like most Christian leaders, I’ve read the books, looked at the blogs and done my obligatory pilgrimage into postmodernism. I’ve been told today’s youth are uniquely lost—apparently only responding to a message that has been contextualized thoroughly into a world of Wii and YouTube. The problem becomes cyclical. Most churches simply don’t have the available resources to compete seriously with the waves of technology our young people are riding. Even if a church could keep up with the cyber Joneses, it still begs the question, “Should we?” In this world of inattention, I question just how genuinely postmodern the average teenager really is. Lofty philosophical paradigm shifts, like modernism to postmodernism, requires a ruminating thoughtfulness seldom seen among young people today.

This isn’t a diatribe against the younger generation. I was once a young “Jesus Freak” musician in Southern California, and now I’m the aging father of a megachurch IT guy who is also the lead guitarist in the popular worship band Desperation. However, I’ve been a dad, pastor, and for the past eight years a mission organization director, as well as adjunct professor. Young people seem the same to me—broken people who are the objects of God’s love.

Here’s my thesis: Lostness still results in people being lost. Young people need love, acceptance and affirmation, which is uniquely found in the gospel message, but must be incarnationally communicated by adults who love them. The problem with using technology as our primary method of reaching young people is the method itself is problematic. Thus, the flannel graph! Removing the fog and light machines from the youth service might not singlehandedly transform your ministry, but taking time to listen to young people, encouraging and loving them, might have sticking power that technology doesn’t. Who knows? Maybe that old flannel graph is retro enough to grab their attention while you teach a Bible story! By the way, you can still buy them.