The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. 12 But a hireling, he who isnot the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. 13 The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.John 10:11-13 NKJV

 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” John 10:1-5

St. John Chrysostom said it perfectly: "Every cause of discourse, or disharmony, or division in the church comes from two things: One is the Ignorance of the holy scripture. Second the absolute and irresponsible way in which men are made priest and bishops.

meant to say "To whoever is reading this, I just pray and hope this survey is NOT the same terrible one that HG Bishop David conducted a few months ago. The questions were leading and very poorly written. Like many people stated below, we have many people with real talent in the church. There are people who study how to write and conduct surveys. Those marketing people need to be used to write appropriate survey questions."

To whoever is reading this, I just pray and hope this survey is the same terrible one that HG Bishop David conducted a few months ago. The questions were leading and very poorly written. Like many people stated below, we have many people with real talent in the church. There are people who study how to write and conduct surveys. Those marketing people need to be used to write appropriate survey questions.

I agree with many of the comments that have a ready been stated, but one point I want to share is that we are not the church open to the public. We are more about serving each rather than serving others in the public community.

In addition we, as a church, prioritize our culture of our coptic heritage, more than the Spiritual needs of our youth. We require Arabic and Coptic must be part of a church even in countries outside of Egypt, which creates a barrier to opening and bringing new visitors / guests to be part of our church. It also creates a separation of the culture of the country in which the church is established.


As second-generation and third-generation youth grow up in the church, some you begin to distinguish that this is the church of their parents rather than their church. The church without focus on youth is a dead church.

Well overdue survey and I look forward to participating in it on 27/07

There are number of reasons why our youth could be leaving our churches. I am not going to highlight all of them. However, I would like to highlight one reason that may be overlooked.

Empowering Our Youth to Lead.

It has been a common trend in many parishes that every detail of every service is overseen by the priest of the church. This system of management (Intense Micro-Management) does not create good leaders within our churches. Many of the youth/young professionals are very accomplished in their careers. Those who are, typically have a good understanding of what the structure of an organization should look like. They understand a division of responsibilities, especially based on our particular talents (which in and of itself is a Biblical concept).

Currently this structure does not exist in the majority of our churches. The priest is the end all be all for every decision that is being made. We aren't teaching our youth how to make decisions. We want every servant to be "humble" and obey. When this in fact is a false meaning of humility. This practice of taking a motivated and successful young person and not giving them any true decision making ability deters people (and especially youth) away from the church.

Our youth are not all in training to become monks, but we are treating them in this way. We should work with them and not just tell them what to do and give them an opportunity to work (make decisions) and yes even occasionally make a mistake or two.

The concept of what a priests responsibility has become skewed. Priests no longer solely focus on spiritual development of their congregations, administering sacraments, visiting the sick, going to peoples homes, etc. They should manage the administrative duties of the church from a very high level. Ensure those administrative responsibilities are being adhered to from a spiritual sense and the spirit of the church is moving along correctly. Anyone can take on and organize administrative responsibilities but those intangible aspects of the service is why (or at least should be why) those priests were ordained in the first place. Because that is their expertise. Spirituality is what they know.

The priest focusing so much of his time on administrative duties takes away from his time to serve people. Give the lay people the opportunity to serve. Have the priest serve the youth that are leaving.

Our priests don't like to visit people or to call and administer sacraments. After awhile they get bored of those responsibilities. They want to build buildings, start schools, run retreats, etc. They want to do everything that isn't their main task to do.

Our priest should serve the people. Serve the youth. Give the youth power to lead and make decisions.

Many of our youth leave the Churches in the U.S. specifically in NJ for the following reasons.

1) When a vacancy opens up in a parish we send priests from Egypt who do not know the culture, language, and/or systems and these clergy address American issues from Egyptian experiences and not from American. The youth speak up about this and no one hears them because there is no trust from elders to youth. The faithful, educated, traditional, orthodox American youth are more qualified to have leadership roles in the church.

2) The lack of Orthodox Education by clergy and laity alike sends mixed messages to all. Even when youth want to go to seminary they are not funded and are asked negative questions by clergy like, "do you want to be a priest?" Even when they go and graduate as Masters and PH.D the church does not utilize them for anything so they are forced to go elsewhere. In this area the church does not utilize them because there is no Coptic seminary, other clergy who are not educated feel threatened by those who are educated, and there is no real guidance for those who desire to go into theological education.

3) There is no discipleship! Most of the clergy do not disciple their youth to carry on their talents. Therefore there is no fruits of American born or American raised priests and clergy.

4) No vision to the church as a whole. The clergy in New Jersey like to retain people and not produce and send out qualified people for the ministry. When a priest sees a qualified youth for a leadership position but does not have an opening in his parish he does not send out that youth or refer him to a parish that may need him. This is due to the history of this diocese at its inception. When churches were first being formed the priest would need many congregants to fund a new building therefore the leaving of a parish meant no service, and less funding. Forty years later clergy are still telling their congregants, "don't go to so and so church..." even though it may be practically better for it's commute and better spiritually for that congregant.

5) No care towards the youth. In NJ we have more churches per square mile than many other diocese in the U.S. Yet even after establishing many church buildings we want to build more church buildings even though many of our current buildings do not fill to capacity. Our youth want wreck centers and education facilities. We do not need more of what we already have.

6) Mixing of Priest and Deacons Roles. The priest. Acts 6:2-4 "Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”" Many of our parishes have ordained full deacons within the past 7 years. However the full Deacon who is ordained must have this criteria. They are senior citizens who receive retirement checks from the government so that the church does not have to pay for their livelihood and they happen to attend church regularly. Their duties are to help during communion. The rest of the work as far as the majority of visitations and issues are done by the priest. (Yet our church building that we keep building cost millions of dollars and we already have more than enough space to accommodate our parishioners)

7) The lack of organization diocese wide. Each parish in New Jersey is its own diocese. There is no sharing of servants, money, or any resources with the diocese. A poor church remains poor in a poor community for 40 years with 1 church building. A rich church builds it's second building and is only 10 years old. Then their are the ranks other than the priest and deacon. An apsaltos (or psalter one who sings, Aghnostos (or reader one who reads), Subdeacon (assists the deacon) are ordained. Each does the job of the other with no boundaries and no education as to who should be doing what. An apsoltos ordained yesterday at the age of 5 will read the gospel during liturgy and can't make out the words while the Aghnostos who's 30 is in attendance watching the show. Where are the boundaries? We don't see the mix up of a deacon doing the priest role so why are we confusing the orders below him?

8) Some parish priests take it upon themselves to change traditions and the rites of the church. A church will use strobes, fog machines, and lasers, during the liturgical resurrection reenactment. Another church will play the radio to 99.1 during communion. Where is the Synod? Other priests decide to take off their black cassocks (faragaya or galabaya) when vacationing as if the priesthood had an off duty. Others will shave their beards and want to be more accepting in an American society even though American society has no objection to anyone's dress code (look at Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner they put him/her on a cover of a magazine) These are rogue priests.

So if you want to know why youth leave the church it's because of the chaos going on above. We need your Holiness help. We need your Holiness support. We need your Holiness guidance.

There is no need to take a statistical poll. The church as a whole must come to the realization that generations of youth have left the church and will continue to leave unless something is done.
St. John Chrysostom said it perfectly: "Every cause of discourse, or disharmony, or division in the church comes from two things: One is the Ignorance of the holy scripture. Second the absolute and irresponsible way in which men are made priest and bishops." I will focus on the second part. If you want the honest truth as to why the youth leave the church (specifically NJ) , St. John Chrysostom answers it perfectly. Majority of the coptic clergy are ill-prepared when it comes to orthodox theological education. They begin to use the church podium to teach their own doctrines. For example, once a priest in a local college campus in NJ stated that" 90% of Coptics in this fellowship will go to Hell", "If you study with a girl you will fall with her and eventually like her" Majority of the Priests show partiality to the rich and to the status quo. In the Lands of Immigration, dissent must be encouraged not shut down. Since priests lack the proper education, they focus exclusively on their voices/hymnology. The days when hymnology governed the church is over. Praise without understanding is fruitless and not accepted to God. To have a church which sings long hymns at the expense of the Orthodox education and service is not appropriate. We need servants as clergy. People to visit the houses and help the members of the congregation. Not a small group. We do not elect our leaders in our churches. Unskilled/Untrained priests are the ones selecting their successors for each of their respective parishes. Just in NJ there are two parishes where the junior priest is the senior priest's son in law. Although they are great people, it goes to show that the congregation is not electing their priests. Bishops don't know their congregration. They need to know their flock. The way we elect priests must change for effective change in the church. Do the bishops talk or visit the lay people. The amount of times they visit rich people houses is sad. If this doesn't stop the youth will not return. I respond anonymously because I know how powerful the clergy are in our church. You holiness needs to hear the opinions from the dissent. Advisors who just repeat what you say are not helpful. Pray for me and forgive me.