Keeping your youth in the faith even after they graduate from high school

[judson1982]

It seems like too many youth drop out of church and/or don't hold their relationship with the Lord in as high esteem once they leave high school. What are you who work with youth doing to ensure their faith is dyanmic and growing even after they leave your group? I have often wondered if youth drop out of church as young adults to to burn-out they feel as a result of their youth ministry offering tons of activities (camps, after-game fellowships, mission trips, praise bands, etc)?

 

[Job3315]

It seems like too many youth drop out of church and/or don't hold their relationship with the Lord in as high esteem once they leave high school. What are you who work with youth doing to ensure their faith is dyanmic and growing even after they leave your group? I have often wondered if youth drop out of church as young adults to to burn-out they feel as a result of their youth ministry offering tons of activities (camps, after-game fellowships, mission trips, praise bands, etc)?

I’ve thought a lot about this myself and I think the reason is because in many cases the child/teen learned about Christ from others but didn't have an encounter with Him. The other day I saw a two year old playing the tambourine at church. She could imitate the dance of the adults very well, but it was an imitation. Thats what she learned, that’s how she acts. In many cases the teenagers are fueled by what pastors, teachers, friends and parents told them. So what happens when they get bored? They lose interest and that fuel doesn't last. They need oil themselves. Once Jesus become their fuel/source it’s really hard to depart from Him, you just want more of that living water/truth.

My encounters with Jesus is what makes me stand firm on my faith even when others don't agree. I explained to people that meeting Jesus is like going to a birthday party. I went, had the experience and no one can take that away from me because it is well in my soul. When someone who never experienced that birthday party comes and tells me about the world, my experience has me so anchored in His truth, that no matter how much others want to pull me out I still have those encounteres engraved in me.

I believe many children/teenagers heard of the birthday party. I have a young nephew and my sister lets him see her relationship with Christ through prayer and how she lives, but she is well aware he will need to have his own experience because he is an individual with his own soul.

Every parent should pray for that encounter.

 

[YouthPastorBrett]

Hello, I work with you and young adults at a Christian discipleship school. On staff with me is a Dr. Joe Mulvihill, a PH.D. in Christian apologetics and new testament theology. He reminds us frequently that the rate at which young Christians lose their faith when they attend secular universities is 80%.
The reason for this is that university professors who have anti-Christian agendas have well thought out arguments against the Christian faith. When young people do not have a faith based on reason as they should (1 Pet 3:15), they are spiritually unprepared to meet the intellectual challenges of their secular teachers. Believing that their teacher has the most reasonable answer, they begin the process of falling away from faith.

My suggestion would be to begin studying Christian defenses and apologetics and teaching your students how to examine reason as a prerequisite to believing in anything. Christianity is easily the best documented, empirically verifiable, archeologically sound faith on the planet. Unfortunately, high school and college students don't know this.

If it's beneficial for you: Dr. Joe is currently putting together a free 4-week apologetics youth group curriculum. It will be free to download for all interested youth pastors. It will include Sermon notes (.pdf) Powerpoints (PPT), supplementary videos (Mp4), Games/ icebreakers, worship songs (mp3s), etc. The curriculum is due to be released around the holiday season of 2018, after two other free 4 week curriculums. If you would like to be on the list of youth pastors who want the youth group apologetics curriculum, here is the info. https://www.fsod.com/free-lessons

 

[hedrick]

The obvious reason is that in high school, they can be pushed into participating in Church by parents. That largely stops afterwards. But a few people have wondered whether all the wonderful youth programming many churches supply may have a downside. It doesn't give them experience participating with adults. When they graduate, in most churches, special programming aimed at their needs vanishes.

I'd like to see churches try to get kids involved in adult activities, but also consider whether it might be worth providing more programming for young adults or adults in general.

 

[Karin12414]

My church is trying to start a "College Level" Young adults class. You don't have to be in college, just the age range of 18-25. Right now, we still have a few of the older adults (30's-40's) in our class, but they are just there to help guide us till we get an official teacher. The teen group is right next door to our class and anytime their Leader is out, they sit in our class and participate with us
I agree with hedrick. When the teens are about to be too old for the class, I agree that there should be some sort of communication between he Youth Leader, the teen and the Leader of the next class level to figure out what the teen is hoping to get out of the transition and to maybe be able to keep them interested.