By Andy Waits
Associate pastor of youth, FBC Springville
Three quarters of teenagers leave the church after high school and few ever return. Youth ministers are all too familiar with this horrific statistic. How can this trend be reversed? Here are a few tips that have proven effective.
Preach the Word. This is your job description as a gospel minister. You are not an entertainer, comedian, event coordinator or overgrown teenager. Second Timothy 4:1–5 is your biblical job description.
Give them depth. Teenagers hunger to go deeper in God’s Word. Move them from the milk to the meat (Heb. 6:1).
Give laser focus to biblical salvation. Do they truly grasp what conversion is? How can we expect youth to grow spiritually if they have a shallow understanding of God radically saving their soul for eternity?
Don’t build your ministry on hype. If it takes a circus to get them there it will take a circus to keep them there. Shock value and hype give instant results but do not make long-term disciples.
Implement multi-generational ministry. It is biblical and it works. They must learn to build relationships outside of their own age group if they are going to stay involved in the body of Christ.
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