[hombre_fatal]

There should be a place for people, especially teens, to gather without a bunch of woo woo baggage. I found church incredibly isolating as a kid because we weren’t there just to be, we were there under this expectation that we were partaking in some superstition.

The article already points out a room that the kids were enjoying without religious crap imposed on them. We need solutions beyond bolting on these things to institutions that come with ulterior motives rather than “come here and just be”.

[the_sleaze_]

I think you misunderstand, the 3rd space should be at a church. One in my community does this for teens where they just hang out and do homework after school for 2 hours.

[hombre_fatal]

My megachurch growing up had all sorts of teen events including sand volleyball in the summer.

But there was always this underlying, uncomfortable "threat" that an adult would approach you to talk about your relationship with god or whatever since that's the whole motive of the place existing.

If you're not into that, then you feel out of place. Like being a straight guy at a gay bar who's only there for the happy hour. Or hanging out at a cafe without wanting to buy anything.

We need to come up with something without any motive other than "here's a place to just be".

[the_sleaze_]

I think you have very strong negative opinions about religion without any strong negative experiences. I think that is fair and valid but also worth mentioning.

You were uncomfortable but not forced into traumatic situations. You probably absorbed some sense of morality in line with christian values as well. I imagine you did not sense a threat of someone walking up and offering you adderall or cigarettes. If one of my teens told me that same story I'd be a-ok with it.

My view is if there is no guiding principal the culture will devolve into base behaviors. Especially teenagers without a good capacity for future planning. And that religion is how humans get that job done, warts and all.

[duskdozer]

You're making a lot of assumptions about the parent here. It is not a neutral and comfortable thing to have people looking to proselytize you. You also clearly have positive associations with "christian values", which many do not share. Would you feel just as "a-ok" if the space were designed specifically for adults to have access to teenagers for the purpose of spreading Muslim values, anti-religion values, Satanist values, paganist values, Jehovah's Witness values, even if they weren't clearly "forced into traumatic situations"?

[the_sleaze_]

Within reason - Yes.

There are 8 billion people on the planet you can tolerate some different world views and decide your own.

This obviously has an acceptable floor of being a safe place for kids to be. Islam, Hinduism, Taoist, any of the world religions, sure. Satanism? We can probably agree that "do as thou wilst" is not an acceptable form of guidance for a 15 year old who will not completely form their brains for another decade. The Unification Church, probably not. Generally accepted as a cult. Latter Day Saints? Sure, the kids could go hang out there.

[amanaplanacanal]

It has been a few decades since I attended church, but in my teenage years they did none of this. The only time I saw the building in use was Sunday morning.

Looking at their website it's hard to tell. Their calendar doesn't show any activities like that, but maybe you have to be plugged into the congregation to know. They appear to be a very left-leaning Evangelical organization now. I didn't even know there was such a thing.