Preparing your teenagers for college

Group, Mar/Apr 2003 by Lambert, Dan

How will your kids survive the transition from high school youth group to college life?

I see youth ministry from three distinct angles. I've been a youth minister for more than 20 years, I've been a professor of youth ministry for eight years, and I parent three kids. In all three roles, I have the same goal- want my teenagers to own their faith in Jesus Christ.

But every year, when new freshmen stream through my classroom door, I can tell many of them left high school unprepared to face the harsh marketplace of conflicting beliefs and values they encounter at college. They don't thrive because they haven't yet owned their faith.

Many youth ministers recommend their grads attend a Christian college for a year or two to gain confidence in their faith around like-minded students and teachers. But if your seniors aren't prepared to continue growing in Christ after high school, then they're just as likely to experience a crisis at a Bible college as they are at Big State U. Believe me, I've seen more of it than I want to. So, what can you do to prep your students to hang on to their faith post high school? Use the following five questions as tools to evaluate what you're doing.

1. Are our teenagers in love with Jesus Christ or with our youth group (or the way we do things here)?

I've seen it over and over again. A college freshman arrives on campus confident in his faith, but is quickly plunged into crisis because his Christian foundation was inextricably tied to his youth group experience.

The typical profile: He's been a youth group member since sixth grade and attended Sunday school and the Wednesday night meeting every week. He was in a small-group Bible study Tuesday mornings before school, and he regularly attended retreats, lock-ins, and summer mission trips. He had many opportunities to recommit his life to Christ.

His youth pastor and adult leaders always told him how to handle his doubts and how to deal with tough situations at school or at home. In seven years he'd been away from the youth group only when his family went out of town on vacation. But now he's a college freshman living in a dorm and taking 15 hours of classes. His new roommate, new friends, and even his professors are throwing new ideas and challenges at him so fast his head is spinning. He's wondering what he really believes. Worse, he feels like he's lost himself.

The antidote to all this is an owned faith. Early on, kids need to be aware that they're part of the larger body of Christ and that their faith doesn't depend on their home church. I recommend encouraging kids to attend fewer youth group activities so they can visit other churches (yes, you read that correctly). If you're threatened by the thought of your teenagers checking out another church or not coming to youth group, then you're fostering unhealthy connections to you and your church.1

In college, young people need to know how to evaluate churches so they can choose one to attend regularly. They also need to know how to find Christian friends and how to continue to mature without relying on you. Christ spent much of his earthly ministry preparing his disciples to grow and build a church without him around. He gave them the Holy Spirit as a guide. Your kids have that same Holy Spirit today. They need to learn to depend on it, not you.

action ideas:

* Have juniors and seniors visit other churches' worship services at least one Sunday morning every other month.2 They can go in pairs or as a group. Connect with them when they return, and discuss these questions together: What was your experience like? How was the worship different? What did you get out of the sermon/message/ homily? What did you learn about the church? Ask them to pick up church literature that will help them gain insights into the church.

* Once a month invite people from your church to tell your kids about the faith challenges they faced when they left high school for college or a job. Don't recruit speakers who had smooth spiritual transitions.

* Team with other ministries in your area to create a Youth Leader Exchange Week once a year. Have the leaders teach your class or meeting time just as though they were in their home environment Afterward, ask kids to ask questions about the differences they experienced.

* Lead your teenagers in a detailed study of Acts and the epistles to learn how the various first-century churches are described. Make a list of your findings, and for each item on the list answer this question: "Should all churches everywhere do this, or does this describe how they did it in their culture?"

2. Do our young people know how to think critically about biblical truth?

One very frustrating day in one of my youth ministry classes, I asked my students what the Bible teaches about premarital sex. They all eagerly agreed the Bible taught that it was wrong. When I challenged them to find Scripture passages to support their answers, they floundered badly. Quickly they were quoting verses about sexual immorality.