How can we help young people stay involved in church?
The topic of this week’s blog recognizes a sad reality. Many of the young people who are active in our church now will not be active in church or in their faith in their twenties. This is not just a statistic for us. Statistically this is a nationwide trend. It is very personal to many of us. I have a prayer card with the names of young people who were active in their faith at GCC while they were in high school, who have walked away from their faith, at least for now. This is a heartbreaking reality in today’s world.
I wish I had the infallible answer to this question. We seek to address it in our approach to children’s and youth ministry at Grace. The reality is that there is no pre-packaged approach to youth ministry or parenting that will guarantee anything. For example, on that prayer card of young people who do not profess Christ are people who were educated in all the different options (home school, public school, Christian school). With the admission that I don’t have all the answers, let me suggest some things:
Realize that preparation is key.
Preparation involves discipleship through relationship - teaching our children and youth to follow Jesus in a world hostile to God, while we strengthen them in an atmosphere of love and support. It is important to stress that it is both discipleship AND relationship. This includes the content of what we teach, and the example that we set. Just having great relationships with children at church and home is not enough. They need to be equipped and trained for the intellectual and cultural battles ahead. We have to root them in God’s truth and grace, and show them how to pursue the Lord for their entire lives.
Imagine you were trying to prevent your home from being broken into and damaged, with all the harm that this would bring to your family. Think of all you would do to protect your home and the people who were in it if you already knew the attack was coming. I think I’d buy a high-end alarm system. I have a great watch dog already, but she sleeps upstairs in a crate. She’d be downstairs and roaming free. I’d have my cell phone charged and ready by the bed. I’d alert the police and ask them to patrol my street. I’d reinforce security measures at every entrance.
I use this analogy because that attack not only will happen but is happening now. The faith of the next generation is being assaulted on every front: intellectually, morally, and socially. That assault happens long before they reach young adulthood. The fight has begun already, and it is critical to consider now how you will engage the battle.
Preparation involves teaching your children to engage the world of ideas now with a Biblical worldview and armed with Scripture. When you encounter objectionable material in something your children and youth encounter, help them see not only that it is objectionable, but why it is objectionable. What are the consequences of living life the way this material suggests? In what ways does this material fail to describe the world the way it actually exists? That is a lot more than saying “don’t watch that show; it is wrong!” It may involve watching the show together and discussing what is wrong to build discernment.
Realize the wisdom of a Proverbial approach to parenting older children.
The book of Proverbs is written as a father-to-son communication. It seems to acknowledge that the way of folly is ever before a young person as an option. Whether it is sexually immorality, dishonesty, or laziness, the author of Proverbs acknowledges that the young person will face tough choices going forward. Proverbs discusses the consequences of both the wise and the foolish path.
As children move closer to adulthood the wisdom of this approach is more and more evident. It acknowledges the real moral and spiritual choices that are before young people, and places increasing responsibility for the consequences of those choices on the young person. This approach invites the young person to see the way of wisdom as the way of life, and seek it actively and passionately.
When many of our young people leave our homes, they lack moral wisdom. They are given adult responsibilities before they possess the maturity to handle them. Proverbs offers a model to prepare them to assume the responsibilities at the right time. It is a good book to read with a young person, and it gives wisdom and a God-honoring model for parents to follow.
Realize the real dangers of the modern university.
I’m going to say some hard things about university life, and yet I value higher education. I think there is a way to go to a university and come out a stronger Christian on the other end. Many of our young people arrive ill-prepared to face challenges to their faith on multiple fronts. It is unwise not to see the real dangers that await a naïve freshman on college campuses.
The university is a challenging moral environment. There is tremendous opportunity to engage in all sorts of morally compromising activities with few restraints. Alcohol is abused as a routine matter at the modern university, and is essentially winked at until you commit some other violation of school policy. While not as popular as alcohol, illegal drugs are easily available, and many students seem to avoid any tangles with the authorities while using them. There are very few restrictions to any consensual sexual activity. If it’s consensual, it is considered permissible. And depending upon the social connections a young adult chooses to make, they may find themselves being strong social pressure to participate in this aspect of university life.
The simple truth is that some of our students are too immature in all dimensions of life to face these temptations. A wise parent may encourage a child to start in a community college, or take a year off to grow, mature, and study the faith in preparation for the university life. A gap year (or even longer) may be wise for some students.
There are, of course, plenty of moral, social and intellectual pressures our children face before they leave home. None of that compares to the unchecked (i.e., un-countered) influence of the modern, secular university on their faith. It is possible to check and counter these influences, but, without guidance, a young student from a Christian home is in for some unpleasant surprises at the least.
While most universities have some Christian faculty, students find many of the ideas that they have learned about the Christian faith under attack. If the student does not understand what they believe and why, they can find hostility and ridicule eating away at their faith. They need resources they can turn to in order to help them find suitable answers to puzzling questions. Of course, this questioning can easily team up with our own sinful weaknesses to encourage us to go down some bad moral paths.
This intellectual challenge can take the form of outright hostility, as Christian groups at Vanderbilt University recently experienced. Many of Vanderbilt’s Christian groups were expelled from Vanderbilt’s campus because they required members of their groups to believe in Jesus Christ and live out their Christian values.
Realize that wolves love lone sheep.
The student most likely to see their faith survive college is the one who actively and passionately seeks out Christian fellowship from the very first week they are on a college campus. The same is true for the young adult who decides to forego college and choose another vocational path.
In the analogy I used of the home break-in, the thief who comes to a house with a barking dog, sounding alarm, and elaborate lock system is probably going to look for another house to rob.
The student who plugs in to a campus ministry like RUF or a solid local church will have support against temptation, and assistance against the intellectual on against their faith. The battles they face will not be unfamiliar to their campus pastor or university church pastor. They will come out the other side of this transition to adulthood with an intact faith that can survive the tough challenges of adult life. What might have been a soul-destroying encounter will instead produce a vibrant and tested faith. Such a student can take the very best the modern university has to offer in the social and intellectual dimensions, while sidestepping the very real and dangerous pitfalls that exist.
Please take some time to pray for our students who are away at college, that they will grow and thrive in their faith.
In Him,
Don