Will They Make It to Christian Adulthood?
The challenge of faith during teenage years
It’s a question I can’t help but ask whenever I spend time with children who are enthusiastic about Jesus. We all know young people who only a few years ago were singing Christian songs at the top of their voices, asking sweet questions about what God is like, and running into church with shouts of delight – yet who now seem to have no faith at all. They have given up because of taunts from their peers, or because they struggle to square the Bible with what they’ve learned at school, or because they want to date a non-Christian, or one of endless other reasons. The road from 12 to 21 is a fearsome obstacle course.
So I wonder: will they make it?
I don’t know, of course. But I think the answer lies in another question: Do they know Jesus?
Jesus said that his sheep know his voice, and that’s why they follow him (John 10 v 3-4). It’s the same for any of us: in order to keep going in faith, we need to know the Lord. We need to hear and love his voice. We need to listen to Him, follow him, and see for ourselves what He is like.
I can’t think of a better way to do that than through the Bible. Our teenagers need to know that the Bible is a living book, breathed out for them by the Spirit of God to help them know Him better. They need to read it, to explore it, to tussle with it and wonder about it. They need to whisper its words to themselves at night and act on them by day. They need to realise that the Bible is not just an instruction manual or a history book, not just a collection of stories or a guiding hand, not just a love letter or a source of truth, but all of these things and more.
So they need to read it – and learn to love Jesus’ voice for themselves.
When I worked in a boarding school, I had a jar full of Bible verses that I would bring for the girls at bedtime. One of them would draw out a verse, we’d discuss it briefly, and then I’d ask what they thought we should pray about. The disadvantage was that we only looked at one verse at a time, no context – but the advantage was that it put the Bible in a framework of relationship. Those verses had something to say to the girls, and the girls had something to say in return. Together, they were hearing Jesus’ voice and responding to it.
It is experiences like that – little tastes of God’s goodness, little demonstrations that the Bible is relevant today, little discussions in which it’s okay to be uncertain – that will give teenagers the courage to open the Bible themselves. Like the pair of fifteen-year-olds I know who recently decided to meet regularly before school, buy some croissants, and go through some Engage devotional notes together. Beyond going along to youth group, they’d never particularly botheredabout the Bible before; but suddenly something had clicked. It had become personal to them. It was worth listening to.
Of course, not all teenagers are natural readers, and it often falls to others to make the introductions. There’s no quick-fix, results-every-time solution for persuading young people that the Bible is worthwhile, but there are plenty of things that can help: good talks and teaching, engaging topical books, one-to-one Bible studies, and creative activities such as acting or drawing – besides, of course, devotional notes that get a helpful balance between questions, explanation and suggestions for prayer.
That’s why here at the Good Book Company we have taken our popular Engage Bible reading notes for teenagers and worked them into a one-year reading plan covering the overarching storyline of the Bible. It’s so easy to make a keen start at Genesis and then give up halfway through Leviticus! But we want teenagers to see God’s amazing love displayed through His big plan of redemption and restoration. Engage 365 is ideal to use alongside the Engage NIV Youth Bible which contains various articles, explanations and creative spaces that also help teens to engage with God’s word. Both resources make wonderful gifts.
It is our prayer that teenagers will hear God’s voice as they read his word. If they hear that voice, recognise it for what it is, and decide to follow it, they will surely make it – not only to Christian adulthood, but all the way to the moment when they’ll stand before the throne and hear God’s voice in person at last.
Article by Katy Morgan, Editor at The Good Book Company
Together Magazine
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