How to help teens prepare for a life of faith

Wes Black, professor of student ministry at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, wanted to know the answer to this question: Why do youth who are active and faithful in their church youth groups tend to drop out of church after they graduate from high school?

He set out to find an answer, interviewing more than 1,360 young adults. Some of them had dropped out of church, and others had remained active.

In the process, he found four factors that tend to make a difference in whether a teenager goes on to have a life of faithful, active participation in church.

Four factors

• Relationships: Students who have friends who are active and faithful in church tend to be active and faithful themselves.

Thus, it’s important to teach teenagers the importance of having Christian friends and how to find and develop Christian friendships.

• Family influences: When parents have an authentic faith and relationship with Christ instead of just attending church, their children tend to remain faithful and active in church as well.

In these families, informal conversations about faith also have a significant influence on children’s lives.

Parenting style is important, too. Young people tend to fare better when parents have taught them adult survival skills, such as time management, decision making and priority setting, and then turned them loose in appropriate ways.

Black found significance in the Old Testament model of parents blessing children as they move into adulthood and then releasing them into the adult world.

• Discipleship: “Those who remain faithful and active in church really have a deep-seated, committed, personal relationship in their faith; they own their faith,” Black said.

“Those who drop out tend to love the Lord and think God is important, but God is just another choice among the other priorities they have to make. God is not at the center of their lives, calling the shots.”

As part of discipleship, Bible reading and prayer are important disciplines.

• Mentoring and intergenerational relationships: Teenagers need adult Christian friends, beyond their own parents, who know their names, care about them and encourage them in their Christian walk.

“As Baptists, we don’t do a good job of mentoring,” Black said. “That’s something we ought to take a serious look at.”