It's 2025! Welcome To The Battle For The Anxious Generation!

I’ll never forget when I first read David Elkind’s classic “All Grown Up And No PlaceTo Go.” My heart broke for the state of teenagers in our society. It solidified my mission to share the Good News of Jesus with and give hope to a generation growing up without the institutions that had traditionally guarded adolescence. Elkind’s book that has marked so many of us was written…are you ready?… 40 years ago!

With the technological changes since Elkind’s initial writing the guardrails protecting teenagers have almost totally disappeared. While interlinc as an organization has been tracking and responding to these changes, understanding the massive impact of this technological tidal wave has blown me away as I have read Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation.”

Youth Leaders Only, in its 40th year, helps youthworkers in thousands of churches be aware of the music their students are listening to, use all forms of music in their ministries, and equip their students to make wise choices about the music & media they have in their earbuds 9 hours every day. A membership costs less than the price of a pizza each month! The theme of the current YLO is “Student-Led Ministry– Making Disciples Who Make Disciples” Click here to get it!

Haidt along with mainstream organizations like Common Sense Media have sounded the alarm… today’s pre-teens and teenagers are in the midst of an “epidemic of mental illness” caused by the “rewiring of childhood” brought on by young people’s constant companion (smartphone) and their FOMO 24/7 involvement with social media. As he puts it we have “overprotected kids in the real world and underprotected them in the online world.”

Each edition of Youth Leaders Only not only has all the newest music and media with resources for your ongoing ministry but also a foundational element of youth ministry. The current YLO focuses on Student-Led Ministry: Making Disciples Who Make Disciples and the late February– early March 2025 edition of YLO will focus on Technology: Ministering To Digital Natives.

“All In” with you making disciples who make disciples of the Anxious Generation,