A couple days ago I came across an article that someone shared on Facebook. This particular article talked about traits of youth who didn't leave the church after high school. It focused on three traits of those of us who stayed connected with a church. (Here is the article: http://www.faithit.com/3-common-traits-of-youth-who-dont-leave-the-church/#.U9cNAFwS0Zk.facebook) These were the traits they focused on:

1. They are converted

2. They have been equipped, not entertained

3. Their parents preached the gospel to them

After reading through the article I just had to share it because what it said resonated with me. Since I was on of those church kids who was there as much as I could (basically anytime the doors were open...), I could have easily fallen on either side of things based on home life and such. Yet here I am at 21 years of age serving in a year long internship position at my church here in Illinois where I moved to for school. I stayed connected with the church even though I was frustrated with it when I left for school. As I read through the article I couldn't help but think that these reasons that were stated were a big part of the reason why I am still connected and serving in and alongside a church. 

The first point is a big one. So often students proclaim that they are Christians and they attend all of the events and are at the church every Wednesday night and Sunday morning. Yet I have to ask...How many of those students are truly converted? How many of them have truly given their life to Him and are seeking daily to follow Him? How many are hearing what we say but in reality are not letting it change them? I'm going to take a guess that the number is higher than any of us want to admit. Yes, the events are fun and it is awesome to have a great attendance, but are they learning and growing while they participate is the question. We need to be teaching them and talking to them with the intent of conversion. We need to pray that God would do a mighty work in their lives and bring them wholly to Him. We can teach them and preach to them week after week and at event after event, but what good is it if they don't experience that true conversion. We should want them to be hungry to know more about Him and to want to serve Him, which is what happens when they give their lives to Him.

This second one really hits a note with me. So often the focus of youth group is merely to entertain the students for an hour or two and maybe throw in a short Bible study time. Nothing to fancy or in-depth, but enough to make it seem like we know what we are talking about and that they are getting something of substance. We get focused on the number in attendance instead of the learning and growth that should take place. Growing up in a church that had activities going on year round both locally and on the district, I am totally an advocate for having good times full of harmless fun and pure goofiness!! Yet I have seen and experienced first hand what happens when we take the focus off of equipping students and put on the fun. How can we expect students to go out and stay connected with a church or share the gospel when we don't equip them with the tools to do so? Once a student has converted and has accepted Him it is our job to help disciple them and teach them so that they can go out and do the same with others. Students should be leaving our ministries knowing how to study their Bible, how to read their Bible, and how to disciple others to become followers. If they don't know these simple things, what good are we doing?

This last one is where I could have went either way when I left home. My mom was a Christian but my father wasn't. So the messages were mixed at home. Yet my mom made us go to church and participate in the various ministries. Did I always enjoy it? No. Did I learn and grow from it? Absolutely. She shared about Jesus at home and faith focused conversation was commonplace. My mom worked in children's and youth ministry, my grandpa was our pastor, and all of my extended family worked or served in ministry to some degree. So as my mom has said, I had no choice. I grew up in it and have now found myself getting a ministry degree in college and serving in various ministries in my church. My mom made sure that the gospel was a part of our lives, whether at home, at church or elsewhere. This is such a key part of raising children who walk with Him faithfully. 

Sadly, so many youth are walking away from the church. This happens often once they have left high school and are on their own. I think that if we want to start keeping our students in the church as they become young adults we really need to make sure that these three things mentioned above are a key part of their lives. For some students the various aspects of this will look different because of life situations, but it can still happen. Students come out of youth group often times lacking the basic knowledge of how to share their faith and what it really means. This alone causes many problems. Throw in lack of support or lack of information coming from home, a church environment focused on attendance and lack of a true conversion...suddenly things are a mess. 

We can so easily fix this for our students. Am I saying it is easy? Not at all. Am I saying that it would be worth it? YES. For us and for them. These students need us to step in and show them what it means to be a true follower. We don't have to have it all together or have all the answers. We just need to be genuine with them. We need to teach them what the Bible says and show them ways to share their faith. As they are leaving home to go to college, especially out of town, we need to encourage them and maybe even help them to find a place to plug in. 

One other aspect, we need to teach parents how to share their faith in their homes. We can do all of this with students but if they are getting a different message at home it makes things so much more difficult. Helping parents to grow in their faith and learn how to disciple others, especially their children, can make a huge difference.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree with the points or disagree? How do you think we can best help our youth? Have you seen something done in ministries at your church that have helped this?

God Bless!

Youth Group: Past, Present, & Future

     So last night was youth group, better known as Journey Live. I have been going to Journey Live and helping out (of sorts) since the fall. When I say helping out it generally means that i've helped to hold the peace, add a comment in here or there, and cook when needed. I have not had to step into the role of actually leading youth group or taking a more proactive leadership role. I have mainly gotten to work on getting to know the teens and connect with them. This whole sorta backseat role i've been occupying this year is going to get bumped up several levels in the next couple weeks. As a part of doing summer missions team (a post will be coming about mission team and the upcoming summer soon) everyone on team will be split up to focus on certain areas of ministry. I will be staying with the teens. However, me and the other one to two people who will be working with the teens will pretty much be in charge of leading all of the activities and small group interactions this summer. This really hit me tonight both during youth group and after in conversations with the teens and fellow adult leaders. I was informed by my pastor of something that I already knew about and have been working on, but sometimes feel like i'm getting nowhere. I need to speak up during small group interactions and Bible lessons. I have been trying to work on this but feel like I get stuck or as soon as I start moving forward I get pushed back again. You may be asking why I even have to work on this to begin with? Well I have an answer for you. Just give me some time to explain...

Youth group was not a pleasant experience for me for the most part. I found it to be one of the places where I actually got torn down and pushed away more than I was lifted up and welcomed. It really ended up shaping me into the person that I am today and that is not entirely a positive thing. Growing up I was pretty talkative, especially once I got to know someone and was comfortable, and this trait followed me into middle school. I went into youth group fairly outgoing since I knew most everyone and I was not afraid to talk and share my thoughts. This lasted for about the first year, so through 7th grade. During that year and the year that followed I really got a lot of negative remarks coming from those in my youth group. I quite frequently heard it said that no one cared what I had to say and no one wanted to hear my thoughts or my feelings. I was pretty much told that I needed to stop talking because no one wanted to hear what I had to say. This really tore me apart and by the time I hit freshman year of high school I rarely talked during youth group, especially during our Bible lesson. Due to other circumstances, this new found habit of not talking became the only way to survive. It didn't help that my mom was in a youth pastor position and my grandpa was the pastor of the church. This meant that everyone expected my life to be perfect. Little known fact: being a PK doesn't mean your life is perfect and you never mess up. We mess up on a daily basis just like everyone else. But I wasn't allowed to share this with people because I was instantly judged and it immediately looked bad on my family. By the time junior and senior year came around I was only going to youth group once or twice a month, if that. There were times I wouldn't go for two to three months at a time. I didn't like being there and with family circumstances it was easy to come up with reasons not to go.

Now that I am a part of a youth group and in a leadership position, I am forced to look back at my youth group experience and see what went wrong and try to keep those things from happening in this youth group.

When you think of a youth group, specifically a healthy youth group that has a regular group of attendees and is growing, you think of a place where students can come and feel welcome. They can come into youth group and feel like they are safe. They should feel like they can share what they are thinking, feeling, and experiencing without being judged. They should be shown God's love by their peers and those that are leading the group. We often think of many of the things that are shown in the image below...

     These things were apart of my youth group at various times but never at the same time. Transitioning from having real youth pastors to having people just fill a rotation schedule so someone was always with us made this hard as well. We never felt like anyone actually wanted to be with us. The new youth pastor they have now doesn't even want to be there. The things in this image are what I longed to have on a regular basis in youth group, but I never got them. These things are also the very things that I want the teens in Journey Live to experience on a regular basis. I want them to come in and feel the presence of strong, positive leadership, a sense of connection and openness with one another, and feel that they are accepted in the group no matter who they are, what they have done, or where they are in the lives.

I want the teens to have that amazing youth group experience that I wish I had had. I hear stories from friends at college about their youth groups and in all honesty I get jealous. Their groups always sound like they were the best! I really want to be a part of making Journey Live that kind of a group/place for these students. I want them to be able to look back on it when they grow up and have positive memories from it. I felt a little like a dork because I was thinking about this on my drive home after youth group and I started tearing up because I just feel so strongly about this issue. These students deserve the best that we can give them and I really want to give that to them! I just need to remember that part of giving that to them is getting past the negative impact of my youth group experiences. It probably won't be easy, but I think it will be worth it in the end.

I am looking forward to the challenges that working with these students this summer will present, as well as the many, many, many wonderful and amazing moments and memories that will come about!! They are such an awesome group of students and I pray that I will be able to provide what they need this summer alongside my fellow mission team members and adult leaders from church. I have no doubt that this summer will be an awesome season of growth for these students, as well as those of us working with them. It may not be in the numbers of students attending, but it will no doubt be in the hearts and lives of the students. I am excited to see the students grow and change in their faith!! It will no doubt be a summer to remember!!