Embedding Faith in Young People

We will call her Julie. Julie was 15 and went to the local School. She did not come from a church family. However through some friends Julie came to an Easter camp run by their church. Julie really enjoyed the community at the camp and the main sessions were started by singing and worship that was awesome and was followed by a speaker who was charismatic, funny and clearly spoke about so many of the issues she was facing. He was helpful and relevant and opened up the offer that God generously loves us, forgives us and sees us as important. What was amazing to Julie was that God wanted us to follow the way of Jesus into a life of significance.

Then on the Sunday night an invitation was given to come forward and accept God’s invitation to faith. Deeply moved Julie went forward. She was prayed with and her friends were so excited that she was now a Christian like them.

Julie went along to a Bible Study with her friends and eventually to the Sunday Night Worship. She was Baptised and her parents were impressed with the change in Julie and they came along for the Baptism. In fact they kept coming back to the church and eventually they also came to faith. This brought a new dynamic to the family which also lead to Julie’s younger brother, Michael also joining the youth group and eventually coming to faith. Julie went on to enjoy the youth ministry activities and worship at her church.

At the end of High School Julie did reasonably well and decided to go to University. This meant she had to leave her local area and move to another city and another community. None of her friends from church were moving to her University and she did not know anyone in the new area or of the churches. Her Youth Worker suggested a few churches she should look at and so she packed up and moved to the new area and started university.

Julie loved University. She lived in student accommodation and soon made new friends, although none of them were Christians. She tried out the churches suggested by her youth worker, but they were so different from the church she had come from! The worship in all of the churches was dull and they sang different songs and worshipped in different ways. She tried one of the Bible Studies but they didn’t take much interest in her either.

Eventually she heard of a campus Bible Study and Christian fellowship so she tried that. They were different from the people “back home” too. Though they were interested in her and did have interesting discussions she found it hard to make friends with people there. She started going less and less and then not at all. The same happened but a little quicker with the churches that she had tried. In desperation she tried another church she had heard about that was supposed to be lively and found them indeed to be lively! Too lively for her to handle. Although their worship was full of passion only one person talked to her and they tried to tell her she needed to have prayers for being baptised in the Holy Spirit. She did not go back.

Julie got to know more and more people around the student accommodation and at university. She joined some of the clubs at university and enjoyed the community and follow up activities with the people there, going to the local pub, sporting games and weekends away.

Julie kept her beliefs in God and would continue to pray and occasionally read her Bible but church and Christian fellowship were not a part of her life. Eventually she would say she believed in God but wasn’t part of the church.

Julie’s story is so like many who have come to faith in a church and then participated in its life and grown in her relationship with God. However when the time to move on came, she found it difficult to join with a church in the new area. We loose so many from the life of the church in the transitions and transfers:
• From primary schooling to high school
• From high school to tertiary education / work
• From higher education to work
• From area to new area

Mobility has become a reality in many of our families and individuals as they journey through the life stages. In much of the developed world the average family shifts every 4.5 years. Mobility has also raises opportunities though. When families move into a new area they are often looking for entry points into the community and are open to new phases of their lives and the changes it will bring. It can be a key time for relationship building and discovering faith opportunities.

The question then comes – How do we build a portable faith in our young people we are ministering with? In most of our contexts large numbers will move and not continue on in our church long term. We generally do not have them from cradle to grave but for a period while they are still young. How do we prepare them for a life long relationship with God? How do we help them find an authentic expression of their faith through the life stages?

Firstly not everyone will find faith and have their faith survive the moving away. Jesus found the same thing and we should not expect any different! In fact Jesus talked of the struggle for faith to take root and grow in people’s lives. In Matthew 13:1-23, Mark 4:1-20, Luke 8:4-15 we hear of Jesus telling the story of the Sowing of the Seed. It is so significant that it is told by each of the Synoptic Gospel accounts. It is amazing how relevant it still is. The parable evokes a number of questions about building a portable faith in our young people.

A farmer went out to sow his seed. Some of it fell on the road; it was tramped down and the birds ate it.
When anyone hears news of the kingdom and doesn't take it in, it just remains on the surface, and so the Evil One comes along and plucks it right out of that person's heart. This is the seed the farmer scatters on the road. - Matthew 13:19
• How do we build faith deep in their spirit?
• How do we build an accepted “owned” faith – not just the faith of the group or leaders?
How do we build deep roots for faith – help them action it?

Other seed fell in the gravel; it sprouted, but withered because it didn't have good roots.
The seed cast in the gravel—this is the person who hears and instantly responds with enthusiasm. But there is no soil of character, and so when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it. - Matthew 13:20-21
• How do we build character in our young people?
• How do we back up emotional responses with pastoral care and teaching/ formation?
• How do we deal with quick responses with no lasting faith expression?

Other seed fell in the weeds; the weeds grew with it and strangled it.
The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it. - Matthew 13:22
• How do we build Kingdom priority values?
• How do we deal with consumerism and “needs”?
• How do we deal with reality and how to cope with it?

Other seed fell in rich earth and produced a bumper crop.
But the seed planted in the good earth represents those who hear the Word, embrace it, [and hold on no matter what, sticking with it - Luke] and produce a harvest beyond their wildest dreams. - Mark 4:20
• How do we help our young people embrace and own faith?
• Stick with the faith?
• Hold on no matter what?
• How do we help talk about future faith and its expressions?
• A Harvest beyond their wildest dreams? Wow!

In consultations in rural areas the most common challenge churches tell me that they face in youth ministry is that their young people leave. Maybe the challenge is not that they leave – when we know they are going to – but that we do not help them to leave. Getting people who have left and continued on in the faith come back and tell how they did it. Maybe taking them to churches in other areas they may be moving to to help them develop relationships before they move.

Let me suggest 10 other possible to help build a Portable Faith in our young people. These are not sure methods or guaranteed protection. They are just things that might help.

1.Relationships and experience with the wider church / Christian Community
I have noted in interviewing people and observing others that those that have experienced the wider church / Christian community are much more likely to meld with a faith community when they shift. They may get to know people in the area they are moving to. Young people can also start to realise all churches / youth ministries are not like the one they have come from.

2. Build Resilience
What is resilience? Is it bouncing back? Is it a steeling process? Is it a character type? In our ministry with young people it is so important to help them to think for themselves and learn to bounce back when the failures and struggles happen within them. Effective Youth Ministry is on about building competence in young people to equip them for life. Faith in God, love of others and confidence in God’s ability to work in them are keys to this.

Effective Youth Ministries will create the formation of helpful boundaries to know what it is wise to do. We are helping form a faith that means young people don’t have to depend on the protection of the church / youth leaders but learn to cope with their realities and deal with them. A key part of faith formation is the building of a flexibility of faith. A question asked of Evangelicals facing the future by Dr. Mabiala Kenzo is Will faith break or stretch? 1. It is a great question.

The other question is what sort of confidence do we help build in our young people? Lesslie Newbigin suggests The confidence proper to a Christian is not the confidence of one who claims possession of demonstratable and indubitable [unquestionable] knowledge. It is the confidence of one who has heard and answered the call that comes from God. 2.

3. Build Capacity
Capacity Building is the mobilization of individual and youth ministry assets from the church and community and combining those assets with others to achieve the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. We help create a future by building hope in what God can do – both in and through each other. We build capacity by helping young people learn to build their faith potential, communication skills, decision making skills and to manage their lives and future opportunities based on biblical principals.

Rollie Martinson suggests that the greatest dimension for developing the capacity building in young people is the congregation. 3. It is a whole church function as young people are given living examples of faith at different life stages and the chance to interact and grow through observing and experiencing being a part of a community of faith where they are important and included – as every part of the congregation. He says young people have great “crap detectors” – they know if faith is real and if they are important to a congregation.

4. Not about information but transformation
Building a portable faith is not about just giving young people information about the Bible or about faith – it is about transforming lives, character and futures. It is also about helping young people experience and experiment with faith.

Helping young people find a language to express their faith is transforming. When we hear them ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you're living the way they are 4. we are starting to see the evidence of a transforming faith. When we see changes in attitude and behaviour we see evidence of transformation. When we see willingness to share faith with others and bring about change with others, we see a transformation.

5. Moving Beyond Co-dependency
To many young people are dependant on their churches and youth leaders for their faith. As leaders it is important that we know our motivation. Our identity or “success” is not taken from having our young people dependant on us - we do not own our young people – they are God’s! Effective development of portable faith is building dynamic faith in the young people not young people into a faith/church structure. Long term faith is not dependant on the leaders, staff, peer group, local culture of the church that they have been in. Faith is a gift from God 5. - not from the church or youth ministry or leaders. To put any of those in front of God can become idolatry.

Paul in writing to the Corinthians states: We're not in charge of how you live out the faith, looking over your shoulders, suspiciously critical. We're partners, working alongside you, joyfully expectant. I know that you stand by your own faith, not by ours. 6.

6. Vision a future with them
Language is very powerful – it images. Visualising a future helps create a future. So when we talk long term and help them hear the stories / testimonies of those older than themselves it creates an imagination of long term portable faith.

The Christian life is a journey. Faith is a journey not a destination. It is helpful in our youth ministry to develop a discipleship goal not just a conversion goal. By helping them understand there are stages in our faith, it can create an expectancy that God is not finished with them yet.

7. Encouragement and Affirmations
Many of the young people in our churches have been “dissed”. Disrespected, disempowered, disenfranchised, disadvantaged, disappointed, disregarded, discounted. People who have gone on in a long term expression of the faith often tell me that when they were in the youth ministry, they experienced being affirmed by other members of the youth ministry, the youth pastor and members of the church. It was like they trusted us and believed in us a number of people told me when interviewed.

Celebrate your young people when they leave… help them to leave! Parties, rituals and laying on of hands to send them out, are affirmations of their faith and your faith in God and in them. It is also a blessing that they be sealed in God’s love and grace.

8. Missional Intelligence
The church [and Youth Ministry] exists for the benefit of its non-members - as old Archbishop Temple once noted. In building Missional Intelligence we come to understand that the purpose of youth ministry is the same as the purpose of the church – to continue Jesus mission in the world - the Mission of God. Helping young people to face outwards rather than inwards develops the ability to learn to exercise faith in their everyday encounters with friends, family and the communities around the world.

Missional Intelligence is built mostly through young people experiencing the presence of God when they serve communities around them and around the world. This is where Mission Trips and opportunities become so important to them understanding the way of Jesus beyond their youth ministry and community.

9. Keeping communication / Pastoral Contact
The principal I have found important to keep is that the young people who move away are under your pastoral care till they find a new church. This can be done through the wonderful gift of communication technology. We now have a capacity through Mobile phone, SMS, email and chat rooms.

It is also good to find and get to know helpful churches in the areas where your young people are moving to and to inform them of the young person who is coming. Networking is so helpful for effective pastoral care connections. It can also be helpful to pass on to the new church insights about the young person’s gifts, experience, capacities and needs.

10. Build Leadership into your young people
Help them discover gifts and talents and then creating space for them to develop these, embed leadership into their faith expressions and lifestyle. Leadership capacity grows a longing to help young people find a church and faith expression.

We will call him Adrian. He was from a poor family with nine children. He did not like his ethnic background and tried to pass himself off as Greek and wanted to be called Spyros. He ran away from home when he was 15 (as was the family tradition) and decided he could fend for himself. He hitchhiked to the main freeway and was amazed when he was picked up by a man who was going all the way to the city he was heading for.

About halfway there the man pulled off the side of the road and raped him. Spyros tried to cover up this event and perhaps even attempt to deal with it by whenever possible, ripping off females sexually. He was up before the judge a number of times for his temper and consequential violence. The judge ordered for him to do a martial art to “deal” with his anger. All it meant was, when he got angry he was more affective with his violence. His trade mark was to destroy his room or veranda at the front of the refuges he was kicked out of. He came to live with us in the Christian household we were running for homeless young people. We took the risk to take him in – after all we liked our rooms and our veranda!

He got beaten up during a fight with his brother and with pride bruised took off. He came back a number of times. Often it was with a young female in tow who was also struggling with past stories of abuse. We cared for him as much as we could. Often under threat of violence I would stand my ground and say “Spyros even if you cannot love yourself God loves you!” This would often be responded to by him spitting out between his teeth “I am worth nothing. Do you hear? Nothing!”

About ten years later I was walking along a main street about hours north of where we used to live and Syros who was back being called Adrian bailed me up. He told me he had a daughter and that although her mother and he were not living together he loved his daughter more than anything else. He was at University learning Thai. You could have knocked me over with a feather!

He told me he was watching a documentary on abused children in Thailand and he thought about that sort of thing happening to his daughter. Suddenly what seemed like out of nowhere all the things I had said to him about God loving him came back to him. He started to cry and asked God to help him. He was in a church and studying Thai in an attempt to go as an aid and development worker with abused children in Thailand.

We trust in the mystery of the work of the Holy Spirit in young people’s lives. Ultimately our work is to gather the wood and it is God who gives the spark of faith and life. Sometimes even the seeds we think have withered or been strangled are in fact the seeds God waters and grow.

1. Dr. Mabiala Kenzo, in an article found @ http://www.anewkindofconversation.com/default.cfm?EK=57DD4802-B0D0-78C0-...
2. Lesslie Newbigin, Proper Confidence, Eerdmans, 1995
3. Roland D. Martinson, Effective Youth Ministry: A Congregational Approach, Augsburg Fortress, July 1988
4. 1 Peter 3:15 (Message Version of the Bible)
5. Ephesians 2:8
6. 2 Cor. 1:24 (Message Version of the Bible)

Previously published in Youthworker Magazine.