A deeper shade of faith CONNECTING AT CAMP
Teens: We want stricter parents, youth leaders
BY AMY FLOWERS UMBLE
Date published: 7/26/2008
BY AMY FLOWERS UMBLE
Listen up, parents and youth pastors.
Teens want more than pizza and Scripture verses.
They want a relationship with God.
And with you.
They want you to be strict. They want you to make them get up for worship services, to force them to go to summer religious camps and to hold them accountable for obeying the rules.
They also want to know you'll love them when they break those rules.
That's what teens at two area mission camps had to say this past month. More than 500 youth from area churches attended FredCamp, an annual summer mission program that combines daily home-repair projects with nightly worship services.
And 120 Baptist teens from Virginia and North Carolina attended weekly sessions of Impact Virginia, a yearly mission trip with a similar structure.
At two home-repair projects, in Hartwood and Ruther Glen, teens talked about youth programs, mission work, summer camps and how they relate to a growing trend: high church dropout rates among college-age students.
A study last year found that 70 percent of teens who are active in church fall away sometime between the ages of 18 and 22. The report disturbed parents and youth pastors and gave theologians and sociologists food for thought. All tried to figure out why young adults flee church in droves.
Some teens at the area mission camps offered some insight about how the adults in their lives could prevent such an exodus.
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Make them go to church camp, youth-group and worship services, teens said. Hold them accountable when they don't show up. "It's so easy to get sucked into immoral living," said Alex Brown, who attends Mount Ararat Baptist Church in Stafford County.
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And drag that kid to church. It's a dilemma every parent faces: Your child wants to sleep in Sunday morning. Do you make him go or let him sleep in? Get him out of bed, the teens said. "What's better?" Brown asked. "Going to church because you don't want to or not going at all?" Half of the dozen teens gathered at the Ruther Glen mission project said their parents wake them up each week for church.
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"When you get to college, who's going to be there to wake you up?" asked John Hanson, a rising senior at Brooke Point High School in Stafford. When teens get to college, he said, they should find a group that will encourage them to attend church, to support that personal accountability.
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If your own relationship with God is shaky, it's time to strengthen it. Teens said the biggest encouragement to keep the faith comes from seeing their parents and youth leaders staying strong. They want to see you hold your own devotions, pray and read the Scriptures.
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Teens want honesty and they want depth from their faith. They don't want to hear it's easy because they know it's not. At school every day, they face temptation and sometimes ridicule. They want to know how you overcome similar situations.
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They may act like they want nothing to do with you, but they do. They want to eat dinner with you and even pray and study the Scriptures together. And on days when they don't want it, they still know it's good for them. "It's important for parents to really teach kids to have a personal relationship with God and not to leave God for Sundays," Hanson said. "You've got to have it every day of the week."
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Yeah, they want you to be strict. But they know they're going to get it wrong sometimes. And teens want to come to their parents for advice at those times. But they get scared. "Reach out, say, 'I always love you, no matter what you've done,'" said Niko Toscano, who attends Mount Ararat. |
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Teens say learning the Scriptures matters, but it can get boring. They need to put it in action. Give them chances to use their talents. At FredCamp, teens said they learned more about faith from painting for a needy family than from typical youth-group activities. "I'd much rather be out here doing this than in a room reading a Bible," said Jake Kroko, who attends St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Fredericksburg.
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And when you do, offer food, games and deep questions. They know you're bribing them with the first two, and they're OK with that. But when it comes to the religion part, teens want more than a cursory glance at the Bible. Erica Johnson, who attends Fredericksburg United Methodist Church, said the searching questions during worship time of FredCamp deepen her faith more than typical Bible studies.
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In last year's study, participants ages 18-22 gave many reasons for dropping out of church:
27%
Wanted a break
26%
Found church members judgmental or hypocritical
25%
Moved to college
23%
Tied up with work
22%
Moved too far away from home church
22%
Too busy
20%
Felt disconnected to people at church
18%
Disagreed with church's stance on political/social issue
17%
Spent more time with friends outside church
17%
Only went before to please others
--LifeWay Research survey of 1,023 Protestants |
TEACH THEM TO BE ACCOUNTABLE |
PARENTING ISN'T A POPULARITY CONTEST |
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Date published: 7/26/2008
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