This week’s topic is all about how we, as youth workers, can help parents to engage in the spiritual lives of their teenagers. This fact may make some of us feel a little insecure in our youth ministry positions but the fact of the matter is that we are not the primary spiritual influences in the lives of teenagers. Most studies don’t even put youth ministries in the top 5 influences!
Check out this table from Christian Smith’s book Soul Searching (Google Books Link)
Take another look at that, don’t skim over it.
A parent’s influence is unparalleled in a teenager’s life.
What does this mean for all of us that care so deeply about developing teenagers into devoted followers of Jesus? It simply means that we need to start taking seriously how we can help parents leverage their influence.
Of course we will always jump to thinking about all the teenagers that we have relationships with who have spiritually disengaged parents and we need to be able to fully help those students, but we all have students who have parents who desperately want to convey their faith to their teenagers. So how do we help them do that?
By the way, on this topic of the church partnering with families is The Orange Conference. The conference is going on this week and I have been invited to be there as one of the conference bloggers. Just follow along at CoffeeWithChris.com for all the latest on what is going on at Orange!
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