Goodway teens stay accountable, fight social norm

We’re all either going to heaven or to hell,” says 15-year-old MaeLee Taylor. “We just have to decide where.”
   
Surrounded by a small group of teenage girls, Taylor sits in the living room of her home near Frisco City. At her feet is a well-worn Bible and a spiral-bound notebook with handwritten notes scrawled throughout its pages.
   
For the girls who gather regularly in Taylor’s home, it’s their time to talk. With no adults around, it’s their time to discuss the myriad of problems that plague their teenage world and learn more about what they believe is the only solution.
   
As teens, the deck is stacked against them. It’s a deck filled with statistics that reveal rampant problems among today’s youth.
   
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2005 statistics indicate that more than half of the 12th graders studied had tried an illegal drug and more than 75 percent had tried alcohol. And according to a 1997 study by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism found that of 4,390 high school seniors and dropouts who had alcohol problems, approximately 80 percent reported either getting drunk, binge drinking or drinking and driving. More than half said that drinking had caused them to feel sick, miss school or work, get arrested or have a car crash.
   
And the National Campaign to Prevent Pregnancy Web site indicates that 414,580 girls between the ages of 15 and 19 gave birth in 2003.
   
In almost every category, the reports seem daunting, leading to one conclusion — yes, “everyone is doing it.” 
   
Then there are the teens like Taylor and her friends — those who aren’t “doing it.”
   
For her and the other teens who are part of the small girls’ Bible study group, the numbers are irrelevant and not indicative of things they cannot overcome.
   
They are taking steps to beat the odds and leading other teens to beat them as well. The answer, they say, is their faith.
   
For the past year, the group of girls — ranging in age from 13 to 19 — has been meeting together to grow in that faith. Their weekly meetings are an outgrowth of a larger emphasis on alternate Bible-study methods being used throughout the Bethlehem and Pine Barren Baptist associations. Called missions Sunday School classes, adults and youth meet in nontraditional settings to reach out to those who might not otherwise attend church.
   
The teen Bible study began under the leadership of Erin Dunn, now 18, whose father, Steve, is pastor of Frisco City’s First Baptist Church, Goodway, in Bethlehem Association. Since its beginnings, the group has grown in numbers and spiritual maturity.
   
“When you’re in a big church group, there is sometimes no one-on-one,” Dunn said. “Here we talk about whatever we need to. It’s an hour of getting to know each other, to grow in our relationships and in our relationship with God.”
   
Taylor became the leader when Dunn enrolled in college this year. 
   
Through the sessions, the girls are developing a deeper commitment to their faith. And studies show that faith plays a role in helping teens refrain from risky behavior. For example, according to a study published in the March 2003 issue of the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, teens who consider religion important in their lives are half as likely as others to drink heavily or smoke marijuana and cigarettes.
   
On the national level, there is a growing interest in tapping into the role of faith to combat the incidence of teen drug and alcohol use. Over the past few years, President George W. Bush’s faith-based initiative has involved enlisting Christian youth groups in the war on drugs.
   
According to a 2003 report in The Washington Times, the Bush administration printed 75,000 copies that year of a guidebook to the drug wars called “Pathways to Prevention: Guiding Youth to Wise Decisions.” The 100-page pamphlet is an effort to teach youth leaders how to use faith in God as an effective means to bring about change in teen drug-use statistics.
   
The First, Goodway, teens are proof faith is effective for abstinence. The youth are taking a stand that makes them the exception to the rule. A large part of their group sessions involves intense Bible study, group and individual prayer time and one-on-one accountability. 
   
Laced with laughter, yet mature in substance, the group sessions’ topics range from typical teenage issues to deeper theological questions about the quest for happiness and God’s role in their future plans.
   
But the conversation invariably returns to what the teens say is their primary goal for the meetings — and for their existence — reaching others for Christ.
   
“We all have a place that needs to be filled,” said group member Cortney Blankenship, 16. “We don’t always know how to fill it. People have to tell you, and that’s why we’re here — to tell people.”