Priorities

November 9, 2021 Jim Musser

If you are parent of late adolescent teens, or a youth pastor, here is a statistic I hope gets your attention—60-80 percent of Christian high school graduates will abandon any church involvement and often their faith by the time they are college seniors. The causes of this are two-fold.

First and foremost, young people are not prepared spiritually to face the rigors and temptations of college life. Parents have not laid down the spiritual foundations (as described in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and Deuteronomy 11:18-21 in their lives. Instead, they have relied mainly on their local church to do the spiritual training of their children through the children’s and youth ministries. As I argue in my upcoming book, Letters from Downstream (due out in mid-January 2022), by doing so parents are contracting out what is their primary responsibility to their children. As I did as a child, kids follow the cues of their parents when it comes to spiritual things even if they are involved in the children’s and youth ministries. If parents are not living out their faith in such ways that are obvious to their children, then it is likely what they are taught in church will not stick. If as a parent, you want your kids to grow up following Jesus, then they need to see in very practical ways that you are following Jesus. Too many parents think it is enough to teach their kids what to believe. It is not. Kids need also to learn from Mom and Dad how to live out what they are taught to believe. In other words, how to follow Jesus. Otherwise, they are likely to become one of the 60-80 percent of young people forsaking the church and the faith.

The spiritual lives of your children must be your first priority. Too often, parents get caught up in chasing after academic scholarships for their kids, so they begin early on strategizing what that will take. Usually, it involves an emphasis on academics and experiences (sports, music, etc.) What is often left out is any spiritual training. I think this is often why parents contract this training out to their local church. By doing so, they can focus on the pursuit of scholarships and other financial aid.

Granted, getting a college education is an expensive endeavor, but the spiritual cost will be much higher if this pursuit of free-rides and grants takes precedence over the Scriptural priority of training up your kids in the Lord. As Jesus warned, it is not wise to pursue worldly riches at the expense of one’s soul. (Luke 9:24-25)

Secondly, and this dovetails into the first reason, rarely is there a priority by the parents and the local church to help make the transition of young people to college smoother spiritually. Most churches do very little to help graduating seniors to find the spiritual resources they will need upon arriving at college. As one youth pastor once told me, when they’ve graduated from high school, it’s up to them to figure out what to do in college. And parents are typically more invested in finding the right school, financial aid, and housing. Little effort is put into connecting their children with the spiritual resources they will need.

The lack of prioritizing spiritual growth in young people is what I believe is the cause of more than half of our young people to spiritually crash and burn in college. It is very easy for parents and churches to blame the secular and godless universities for this, but we need to remember that the 1st Century Church thrived in the midst of a pagan and idolatrous culture. If we are to see a drastic change in this dismal statistic, our priorities in raising our kids must change. You may be asking about now, how can we do that?

It’s fairly simple, but very difficult. It really comes down to parents having a vibrant faith that infiltrates all aspects of their lives. And then passing that faith along to their children by teaching them who the Lord is and what it looks like to follow him in day-to-day life. For the local church, it means training up parents as disciples of Jesus so they are well equipped to do the same with their kids. This is the long-term strategy and the best one.

However, if you have kids right now who will be entering college next year or the year after, there are things you need to do now that will help him spiritually once they arrive on campus. First, find out what spiritual resources (churches and campus ministries) are available at the campuses your child is considering. Next, when you make campus visits, have your child contact (Yes, they need to do this if at all possible because they need to own the care of their own spiritual life.) staff from at least one campus ministry or church to arrange a meeting. Most young adults will not get involved in these if they do not already have a connection. Only if a fellow student invites them, will they be likely to go once they’re living on campus, and there is no guarantee of this. Most campus ministers, in particular, will jump at the chance to meet future students and will likely invite a student or two to come along so as to help make a solid connection with your child.

If you are a youth pastor, make it a priority to invite campus ministries from the campuses your students most likely will visit to come to your youth group meetings so your young people can meet college students who are walking out their faith on campus. This can pave the way for connections down the road when your students are heading off to college.

Prioritizing the spiritual lives of young people is crucial if we are to see less and less of them forsake their faith. It is not what we are accustomed to, but it is our only hope if we want our kids truly following Jesus after graduating from high school.