Age and coming to faith
I've just read this:
"85% of all people who will ever come to Christ will do so before they reach their nineteenth birthday" (Tim Hawkins Leaders who will last. p12).

Many of us who are around youth ministry have heard and used sats like that before. I've seen it played out in
many churches when you ask people how old they were when they came to faith.
But what does it mean for churches?

I know it should (and does) inspire us to invest in youth and children's ministry.

But it also raises some other questions for me:
- If these stats are true is there a danger that we're exploiting young people? (See this post)
- Is this because we've invested heavily in youth (either for good motives or fear of the church dying out), but neglected other areas?
- Are we as churches just a bit rubbish at helping adults and older people come to faith?
- Is this a universal cultural phenomenon or just a Western thing?

Or is it just a God given opportunity that we should rejoice in?