Helping Kids Keep Their Faith

The Fuller Youth Institute has launched the College Transition Project that followed 500 youth group graduates for their first 3 years of college.  They hope to better understand what the “sticky factors” are in the faith development of a young person as they enter college and young adulthood.  In other words, they are looking for the factors present that contribute to a faith that sticks beyond youth group.  The full report will come out in 2011.  But I got a chance to attend a preteen ministry networking meeting a few weeks ago where someone shared one of the “sticky factors” discovered.

What was it?  The study found that having one or more persons with no agenda involved in the life of a young person contributed to a “sticky faith”.  Someone was involved in the young persons life who simply showed up.  A person who valued and accepted him/her as is.  A person with no agenda.  A coach who cared about a player not because he wanted to make him a star quarterback, but because he really cared about him.  A teacher who was involved in a students’ life without the agendat to push him to excel at academics.  A children’s pastor who got involved with a kid who was having trouble at home, not just to lead her to Christ, but because he genuinely cared.

As leaders, we often have an agenda.  We want to lead a preteen to Christ.  We want to see kids grow in their relationship with God.  Don’t get me wrong, these are good goals to have.  But I wonder if we are too agenda driven.

The Fuller Youth Institute’s study suggests that what kids need most is a caring loving leader with no agenda other than to see them grow up to be healthy adult.  Our agenda to lead a child to Christ is what often initiates our relationship with them.  We get to know them and their story because we want to share Jesus with them or see them grow in their relationship with God.  We have an agenda that often drives who we spend time with and who we don’t.  Furthermore, we train our leaders to do the same.  Our agenda is often more important than simply communicating love and acceptance.

Kids today have enough pressure from adults to excel at school, sports and other activities.  Often, the only adults in their life are agenda driven.  A teacher who pushes a student to excel at school or a coach who trains an athlete.  All good and much needed goals.  However, today’s kids seem to need a break from so much performance.  They seem to crave and need relationships with adults who are not performance or agenda driven.

What if we spent time with kids simply because we cared about them?  What if we asked how their week was at school, just because we wanted to know?  What if we trained our leaders to communicate love and acceptance to the kids in our ministries above everything else?  I think if that was priority #1, then opportunities would come up where we could speak truth in their lives.  We can share Jesus with them.  We can help them go deeper with God.  But it seems those things, which we usually put most important, need to be less important.

I’ve been doing preteen ministry for over 12 years.  I didn’t read about the Fuller Youth Institute’s study when I first launched a preteen ministry from scratch.  But from day one I made my #1 priority to “show up” and get involved in the lives of preteens and their families.  I made it a priority to find out what’s going on at home and be there for them.  I train my leaders to do the same, creating a network of love and support.  I admit that I often go through cycles.  I do better some years than others.  Juggling a lot of leadership responsibilities and experiencing rapid growth often get in the way of investing in the lives of preteens and kids.  The bigger the ministry, the more important it is to train other leaders to love kids.  A high priority of any successful preteen or kid ministry is to display unconditional love and acceptance without an agenda.

Today, I challenge you to really think about your approach.  Are you too agenda driven?  Why?  Do you want to change your attitude?  How?