What do teens need from the church?

Last night I read a blog that spoke to me so much that I wanted to share it with my readers. Sara Barratt is a twenty-year-old who has seen too many in her age group walk away from God. She has written a book that I believe would be a great addition to the library of a church youth worker or a youth teacher. I have to be honest and admit I have not read the book so I cannot endorse it, but based on her comments in her blog post I think the book would be beneficial to those who minister to youth. The book is titled Love Riot. If you want to read her post you can find it at https://gcdiscipleship.com/article-feed/six-core-things-teens-need-from-the-church. In the post she says there are six things that teens need from the church.

• Intentional Discipleship - Too many youth ministries focus on fun activities designed to attract young people and keep them coming. While these activities may grow the youth group larger, they do not grow the individuals deeper in their relationship with God.
• Open Conversation About Hard Topics - Teenagers are wrestling with a lot of difficult issues. If the church doesn't address them or offer a safe place to discuss them, teens will seek answers elsewhere. These may not be the best answers. Growth comes when we are free to talk about the hard topics.
• Biblical Literacy - One day our teenagers will leave the safety of their home and church and enter into a world that rejects biblical truth. They need a solid foundation for their faith and helping them learn how to read and study the Bible is essential to helping them acquire that foundation.
• Solid Theology - Anyone who has questions about Christianity is ultimately asking questions about God, and this includes our teens. Our churches need to be places that are not afraid to preach and teach biblical doctrines. Studies have found that when unchurched people begin to search for a church to attend they look for one that believes something and is not afraid to proclaim it. We do not have to water down the Gospel for the unchurched or for our teens.
• Truth-Filled Apologetics - Our society today is quick to challenge almost every Christian belief. Apologetics give us the tools we need to answer those critics and defend our faith. Our teens need to not only know what they believe but why they believe it. If they can't defend their faith, one day they are apt to walk away from it.
• Jesus - Our teenagers need to know that Christianity is not about keeping a list of rules but a relationship with Jesus Christ. As important as it is to know the things listed above, it's even more important to know Christ. We need to do everything we can to encourage them to enter into a relationship with Him.

Of course, it's not just our teens that need these six things from the church. Many of our adults need the same things. I want to encourage every church leader and pastor to become intentional about implementing each of these six things to everyone in their churches.

How parents can raise healthy, happy children

There is no question that children and young people have it tough today. They face many more temptations and challenges than most of us ever knew when we were growing up. Many never get to know a real childhood as they are forced to grow up much too fast. When I was a pastor I often told our church that our number one priority as a church was to reach people for Jesus Christ and our second priority had to be to help families thrive in today's culture. I still believe that. There is no other organization than the church that has the tools that can help children survive these difficult growing-up years. How can we help parents ensure their children grow up to be healthy and happy individuals?

In his book What Americans Really Want...Really: The Truth About Our Hopes, Dreams, and Fears Frank Luntz offers six parental behaviors that can help raise such children.

1. Have dinner with your children. I have read that the average amount of time parents spend in meaningful conversation with their children is 3 1/2 minutes a WEEK. Sitting down to eat dinner with our children sends a message that they are important to us and gives parents an opportunity to actually talk with their children. This means no phones and no interruptions. Family dinners may be a thing of the past, but they do not have to be, and they are important for raising healthy children.
2. Take your child to church every Sunday. Church attendance keeps dwindling while cultural problems keeps increasing. I think there is a connection. Don't take your child to church and drop him or her off while you do something else. Attend services with your child so they know that your faith is important to you. 
3. Check your child's homework every night. This demonstrates that you believe their school work is important, and it helps you spot early on if there are problems. It also allows more time for conversation, especially about things going on at school.
4. Demand the truth from your children. When your children are going out you should know where they are going, who is going with them and what they are going to be doing. Don't be afraid to set boundaries about acceptable behaviors and those they associate with. Never tolerate deceit from your children. 
5. Take your children on vacation at least one week every year. They need a break from the normal lives they are living, and this gives you more time with them. Create special memories that will outlive you.
6. Encourage them to participate in a team sport. When playing team sports they learn they are responsible to other people. It also gives them exercise and gets them away from video games, social media and other things that consume so much of children's time today.

Each year when I pastored a church I preached a series of sermons on family life between Mother's Day and Father's Day. It was a way to emphasize the importance of the family and a way to present biblical teaching on family life. With so many trying to tear apart the traditional family, the church needs to rise up in support of the family. Because children are so vulnerable we need to especially focus on their needs and challenges.

Questions we must answer

A couple of weeks ago I discussed a seminar I had attended based upon the book Growing Young: Six Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church. In that seminar Kara Powell, one of the authors of the book, talked about the three questions that young people ask.

1. Who am I? (Identity)
2. Where do I fit? (Belonging)
3. What difference do I make? (Purpose)

These are critical questions that churches need to help young people answer if we are serious about wanting to impact their lives with the gospel. Actually, these are the same questions that all of us ask, often at various times in our lives. In fact, I would say that every time we go through a life transition we ask these same questions.

One of the things I found interesting is how many young people answer the identity question. For many, they find their identity

• By the number of likes they have on social media.
• In their selfies.
• By the number of followers they have on social media.
• In their daily contacts on Snapchat.
• By the types of phones they have.

Before you think these responses to the question about identity are shallow I encourage you to think back to your teen and young adult stages. Where did you seek your identity? For many of us it was

• In the cars we drove.
• By our hairstyles.
• In the groups we associated with in school.
• By the colleges or universities we attended.
• By the people we dated.
• By the music we listened to.

It's easy to judge and stereotype today's young people, but doing so will not help us point them to the answers they find in a relationship with Jesus Christ. They don't need people judging them, any more than we did when we were going through those life stages. They need people to walk with them in their journey who will help them find the answers they are seeking.

The authors of the book suggest that their answers to the identity question is found in God's grace. Their belonging question is answered through the love of community, and the purpose question is answered as they become involved in God's mission in the world.

I wonder...how long has it been since your church addressed these three life challenges?

Growing Young

This past week I attended a seminar on Growing Young led by Kara Powell, one of the authors of the book by the same name. The seminar was hosted by the Center for Congregations, an organization that is a real blessing to the churches here in Indiana.

I had actually purchased and read the book last fall but was quite excited to learn that Kara would be here to lead a day-long seminar on the material in the book. The book is the result of extensive research with over 250 congregations that are successfully reaching teens and young adults. In that research they identified six things that these churches are doing that allows them to effectively reach these young people.

My reason for reading this book and attending the seminar is probably the same as the other attendees. The vast majority of churches are not effectively reaching young people. At a recent Church Council meeting we heard about declining Sunday school attendance, especially in the children's and young adult classes. Teens and young adults ages 18-29 make up a small minority of our congregation. I wanted to know what churches that are reaching these young people are doing.

I did not want a three-step approach guaranteed to reach young people (OK, I would have taken that even though I know it's not going to be that simple.), and that's not what we were given. We were taught important ways our church's culture needs to be changed that will make it more appealing to young people.

One example of this was called unlocking keychain leadership. We all remember the first time we were given the keys to the family car. We felt empowered and trusted. We felt the responsibility that went along with that trust. The same is true when we give keys to the young people in the church. The authors write, "When we refer to keys, we mean the capabilities, power, and access of leaders that carry the potential to empower young people." They later write, "If you are willing to entrust your keys to young people, they will trust you with their hearts, their energy, their creativity, and even their friends."

When I first read this in the book I made a note in the margin. As a young man in my late 20s our family became very involved in a local church. The pastor asked me one day if I had ever felt called to become a minister. I admitted I had, and we talked about that. Sometime later he handed me the key to his study. He knew I enjoyed reading, and he wanted to make his library available to me. I was free to use it any time I wanted.

That key opened up a whole new world to me. There were shelves filled with theology books, books on ministry, commentaries, and more, and I had access to them. But that key meant more to me that just the accessibility of the books. It meant that I had a relationship with the pastor who entrusted me with a valuable possession, his library. As a young man, and a relatively new Christian, my pastor invested himself in me, and a couple of years later I accepted God's call on my life to become a minister.

Who are the young people in your church you can trust with leadership responsibilities? What keys can you turn over to them, and what is the likely impact of you doing that? Is that even possible in your church, or does the culture in your church need to change?

If you are interested in seeing your congregation reach more teens and young adults I would recommend you to read Growing Young: Six Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church. If Kara Powell is in your area leading the seminar on this book I would highly recommend you attend it as well, and be sure to take others from the church with you. It will make interesting conversation on the way home!