The Sticky Faith group at Fuller Youth Institute have studied the reasons young people stay in church, looking for a “silver bullet” for churches and parents to use to keep that from happening. While there was no “silver bullet” churches that encouraged intergenerational connections and worship and youth that felt involved and connected to the larger church had a much greater chance of remaining in church post high school. (The findings can be found here).
In this article, researcher Dr. Kara Powell clearly demonstrates the need for and support of corporate worship, stating ” Of the many youth group participation variables we examined, involvement in intergenerational worship and relationships had one of the most robust correlations with faith maturity.”
Most recently, Awana partnered with Barna group to look at the resiliency of youth in church post-graduation. They discovered that when kids have a meaningful relationship with an adult in the church, they are twice as likely to have an ongoing relationship with the church and three times more likely to be engaged in Scripture including understanding the metanarrative of Scripture and integrating biblical principles in their life. The conclusion drawn by the researchers at Barna Group? “The meaningful relationships individuals have as children fundamentally influence the stability of their future faith.” (Source).
Every single one of these things has to do with relationship, with people, with us.
Do quality materials matter? Sure, I wouldn’t recommend just grabbing any old curriculum off the shelf. But do the materials we use have a tremendous influence on the kids who attend our Sunday school for one hour each week if we are lucky? Eh, probably not as much as our relationship with them, our modeling of Christ character of humility and grace, and our intentional decision to make space for them to wonder, question, doubt, and be curious as they find their own identity in Christ.
Buzz words come and go as quickly as a Snapchat picture or a TikTok trend. What we do, who we are, and how we love will stand the test of time. Let’s major on the majors and minor on the minors. Let’s put our energy into that space, encouraging one another all the more as we see the day drawing near, lifting up not tearing down our fellow ministers and parents, and being a community of faith that our young people will find hope, safety, and Christ-centered relationships in.
This article originally appeared here and is used by permission.
