(Ventura, CA) - A majority of today’s teenagers attended church when they were young children or adolescents – most of them attending on a regular basis. A new survey from the Barna Research Group explores what these teens say they received from their church when they were younger.
Attendance Patterns
A majority of teenagers – 56% – says that they attended church-related activities an average of two or more times per month prior to turning 13. (An additional 6% said they attended an average of once a month.) The young people most likely to attend church events twice a month or more often were those living in the South or Midwest (about two-thirds did so, compared to slightly less than half among kids living in the Northeast and West).
What They Retained
When asked what they learned from their exposure to the church’s ministry while they were young children and adolescents, eight out of ten identified something that they felt was an important insight or category of lessons. One-quarter of teens (26%) said they received general information about God, such as claims regarding His existence, information about His attributes or teachings about the life of Jesus Christ. One-sixth of today’s teens (17%) said their church experience had imparted core religious beliefs from the Bible. One out of every seven young people (15%) said they learned important lifestyle principles, generally in relation to obedience to God’s laws or moral direction for their life. Smaller numbers of teenagers recall developing important relationships or relational skills at church (8%) or general ideas about the role of faith and church (5%). One out of every five teens (21%) said they did not learn anything of value during their time attending Christian churches.
Outcomes From Their Attendance
Each teenaged respondent who had attended church at least once a month during their younger years was asked whether or not each of eight specific outcomes accurately described their pre-teen church experience. Three of the outcomes were claimed by nine out of ten teens: having had exposure to Bible stories (95%), learning about the lives of great people in the Bible (92%), and having fun or positive experiences related to religion (89%).
Nearly as many young people said they felt they had developed meaningful friendships at church (87%), discovered the traditions of their church (86%), developed a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ (85%) and had opportunities to serve needy people alongside of their churched peers (85%).
The single outcome that was much less commonly cited was “understanding enough of the Bible so that every decision you make is based on biblical principles.” Only half of the churched young people – 53% – said this was a result of their church experience.
Reactions to the Findings
Deeper analysis of the survey results led the study’s director, George Barna, to conclude that children get some very helpful and valuable experiences from church involvement, but often do not receive sufficient training in applying biblical content to their decision-making process. “We discovered fairly strong correlations between understanding how to use the Bible for life decision-making with becoming a born again Christian during the younger years, having an active spiritual life as characterized by consistent prayer, Bible reading and church attendance, and possessing a biblical worldview. Unfortunately,” Barna noted, “less than one out of every ten churched teenagers has a biblical worldview. In other words, the result of their involvement at a church is that they can recite some religious facts, they made some friends, and they had fun. That’s wonderful, but we also find that most of them have neither accepted Christ as their savior nor altered the basis on which they make their moral and ethical decisions in life. For most teenagers who have spent years attending church activities their faith is not integrated into who they are and how they live. Most of the young people who claim they developed an understanding of the Bible that enables them to make decisions based on biblical principles show no evidence of using that understanding in relation to the core beliefs and lifestyle choices that we studied.”
MY COMMENTS: WE NEED TO WAKE UP!!! Our Children need real ministry not just Games and crafts. They deserve better. Teaching them to study and engraft God's word into their lives is what our goal should be. NOT BABYSITTING OR ENTERTAINING THEM!!! How awesome would it be to look back at our ministries years down the line and say with confidence that we concerned ourselves with what God is concerned with. In contrast it would be a tragedy to look back at our ministries and say "We had fun" or "I think the kids really liked me" but not be able to say I did all I could to equip them to go out from our church and live dynamically for Christ . We have not been called to be the YMCA but instead God has called us to train children and students in the Holy scriptures. Our youth are our future . What we invest in them today is what our Church will look like tomorrow. Weak teaching and discipleship today equals weak Christians leading our Churches tomorrow. I don't want that on me. We love fun and that is definitely part of working with youth but we must do all in our power to intentionally lead them to the Word and endeavor to have Biblically centered ministries
