Teens losing faith because it’s never theirs…

            I heard a staggering statistic on the road this morning. While listening to the radio, it was shared that now it is projected that 9-10 confessing Christians lose their faith during their college years. This means that out of every 10 young Christians only 1 is making it out of these years with their faith in contact. This means that we are either dropping the ball in preparing our young believers for their adulthood through lack of study, or we have not taught our young men and women to be dependent in their faith. I believe that a combination of both is where we are losing the battle for our young people.  I thought that the staggering 50 percent statistic from just 5 years ago was a loss, but now we must step into action as parents and spiritual leaders to stop this from happening.

            First, I believe that our quality of study has greatly decreased because we are convinced that students can not or do not understand the material that is being taught. We have in essence dumb’d it down for our kids and done them a major disservice in the process. We have taken a path of least resistance and as a result our children and graduates unknowingly pay the price. I understand that we all have busy schedules and it is hard to fit everything in, but we have to make teaching our youth a priority. Teachers understand that your teaching will be held accountable in judgement (James 3:1), and you have to answer for the things you spiritually fed these children. For those who haven’t become teachers yet, you should seriously consider it. When spiritually mature, you should be able to teach on various levels (Heb 5:12).  What we feed them is what they will become. We must ensure that we don’t sell them short and keep them from reaching their spiritual maturity.

            Second, we tend to enable our children to be spiritually dependent. The do not have a faith of their own, because we nurture them to the point of being unable to develop their own faith. They never get to make major faith decisions because Mom and Dad make all those major faith decisions for them. They don’t decide to come to church, or how involved to be. Mom and Dad make those decisions because the child is under their watch. This means we have to provide faith opportunities for these children to grow some independence in their faith. We have to let them grow their own legs. Cicadas have to push out of their own shells independently without intervention or they will never be able to fly. If their process is made easier by any outside source, then they will never be strong enough to survive. The same goes for our young people. If we make a path of least resistance, we do our young people a major disservice because they will never become as independent or strong as they could be. They need to be involved, active, and encouraged, but never given an easy way out.

            Parents MAKE YOUR CHILD’S SPIRITUAL LIFE YOUR PRIORITY! Where your priorities are your child’s will soon follow. How they see you live your life is how they will model theirs! We can’t lose 9-10 students. That is 9 too many…