Young people all over the world are very frustrated. They are

Host: The church was empty, its pews long abandoned by the rush of morning believers. Dust drifted lazily through shafts of light from stained-glass windows, where fragments of saints and halos painted broken colors across the floor. The air smelled of candle wax and memory, of incense that had long burned out but refused to leave.

Outside, the world had moved on — car horns, advertisements, neon promises of a different salvation. Inside, Jack sat at the back pew, elbows on his knees, his hands clasped like a man still trying to decide whether to pray or let go.

Jeeny entered quietly, her steps soft, the click of her heels echoing off stone and silence. She didn’t kneel. She sat beside him, eyes raised to the crucifix at the altar — a carved Christ looking down with a face that had seen centuries of both devotion and doubt.

Jeeny: (softly) “Myles Munroe once said — ‘Young people all over the world are very frustrated. They are very disillusioned. Many of them are turning their backs on religion. They are walking away from the faith of their parents, and most of this is because religion has failed them.’”

Jack: (half-smiling) “Failed them, or betrayed them?”

Jeeny: “Maybe both. Maybe it promised a God who would listen, and delivered men who wouldn’t.”

Jack: “You sound angry.”

Jeeny: “No. Just… tired. Like most people who were told that obedience was faith.”

Host: The light shifted across the pews, red and blue fragments of glass flickering like fading embers. Jack leaned back, staring at the cracked ceiling where old water stains had shaped themselves into clouds of brown decay.

Jack: “You know, I used to come here with my mother. Every Sunday. Same seat. She’d pray with her eyes closed, and I’d peek around wondering if God ever really showed up. He never did.”

Jeeny: “Maybe He did. Just not in the way you were taught to look.”

Jack: (bitterly) “Yeah? Because all I saw was guilt dressed as holiness. Rules pretending to be love.”

Jeeny: “That’s what Munroe meant. Religion failed — not God. People tried to own the divine and ended up building cages instead of doors.”

Host: The organ creaked faintly in the wind, one of its keys moaning softly — a ghost note in an empty hall. The sound filled the quiet like a sigh.

Jack: “So that’s why young people are leaving, huh? Because the faith of their parents feels like hypocrisy?”

Jeeny: “Not hypocrisy — irrelevance. They were taught dogma for a world that no longer exists. They were told to memorize verses instead of learning how to live.”

Jack: “And now they’re all looking for something real.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Something they can touch. Something that breathes.”

Host: Jack ran his fingers along the edge of the pew, feeling the worn wood smooth from generations of folded hands and silent bargains.

Jack: “You think religion can ever come back from that? Or is it too late?”

Jeeny: “It depends on what you mean by religion. If you mean the institutions — maybe not. But if you mean faith… faith never really dies. It just migrates.”

Jack: “Migrates where?”

Jeeny: “Into new forms. Into art, into justice, into kindness. People may leave churches, but they don’t stop searching for meaning.”

Host: The sunlight dimmed as clouds drifted past, the stained glass darkening. The colors on the floor faded, replaced by grey. For a moment, the crucifix looked heavier, the figure lonelier.

Jack: “Funny, isn’t it? We built temples for God, and now we build brands for ourselves. We used to kneel. Now we perform.”

Jeeny: “Different altars. Same hunger.”

Jack: “You think it’s wrong? Walking away from the faith of your parents?”

Jeeny: “No. I think it’s honest. Sometimes leaving is the first act of real faith — the courage to seek truth beyond tradition.”

Jack: “That’ll get you excommunicated.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Maybe. But Jesus wasn’t exactly welcome in the temple either.”

Host: A pigeon fluttered through a broken window above, circling once before landing on the edge of the altar. Its feathers caught the faint light, soft and luminous against the stone.

Jack: “So what do you tell the ones who’ve lost their faith completely?”

Jeeny: “I tell them loss is sacred too. Every disillusionment is a kind of prayer — a protest against false gods.”

Jack: (quietly) “You sound like you still believe.”

Jeeny: “I do. Just not in the way I was taught. I believe in the pulse behind things. In mercy that doesn’t need permission. In the quiet kind of love that shows up where the rules break.”

Host: The rain began, light at first, tapping on the roof — the sound of renewal, or perhaps cleansing. The scent of wet stone filled the air, and for a brief moment, the church didn’t feel abandoned. It felt alive.

Jack: “You know, when I hear Munroe’s words, I think of all those kids leaving. They’re not running from God. They’re running from the noise that drowned Him out.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Religion became a business. Faith became performance. The young wanted truth, and instead they got a production.”

Jack: “And so they stopped buying tickets.”

Jeeny: (softly) “But they didn’t stop yearning.”

Host: The rain intensified, echoing through the hall, drumming against the glass like a thousand whispered questions. The crucifix gleamed faintly under the water-streaked light.

Jack: “You ever think maybe faith is supposed to fail before it’s real? Maybe belief that’s never tested isn’t worth much.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Sometimes you have to lose your religion to find your soul.”

Jack: “And what happens when you find it?”

Jeeny: “You stop looking for God in buildings and start seeing Him in people.”

Host: The camera would pull back, showing the vast emptiness of the church — two figures small but luminous in the half-light. The rain outside shimmered through the windows like a moving stained glass of the world — imperfect, alive, unholy and holy at once.

And as the sound of thunder rolled across the city, Myles Munroe’s words would linger — heavy with truth, gentle with grief:

That the young are not lost,
they are simply tired of false sanctuaries.

That faith cannot survive on fear,
nor can religion endure without relevance.

That the divine does not dwell in doctrines,
but in the courage to keep searching —
even when every altar has failed you.

And that someday,
when the temples have fallen silent,
a new kind of faith will rise —
not built on rules or ritual,
but on the quiet, rebellious act
of still believing in goodness.