Do you know a teenager who could use a little encouragement in their relationship with the Lord? Encourage them to walk with God now, and you’ll see results when they reach their 20s. According to the Gallup Organization, the least likely group of adults to commit to a church are young adults. Only 33 percent of 18-to-29 year olds attended a religious service in the previous week. That’s compared to 40 percent of adults aged 30-65.
While teens are often very religious, that interest falls off once they head to college.
“I think morality is individual,” said a 22-year-old student quoted in Her Way: Young Women Remake the Sexual Revolution (New York University Press). “And I think that morality is you search and delve into yourself and know what you want and what you need and what is good for you. If you do something and you don’t have a problem with it, that’s what you want to do and you know that’s right for you, then how can that be immoral?”
Without the Lord in their lives as teenagers, it’s no wonder that young people think that morality is “what is good for you.”
Know a teenager with an upcoming birthday? Send a birthday card and add a handwritten note. Don’t get preachy, or they’ll close the card before they even read it. Just share something personal from your own life about how the Lord has helped you (and how you wished you had known Him better when you were a teenager).
And once you drop the card in the mailbox, don’t forget to pray for that teen!
“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it” - Proverbs 22:6 (NIV).