music for my academic, youth-loving soul

"First, realize (and celebrate) that this curriculum is a mixture of Scripture and social science data, of theology and research.  Theology based in Scripture beats at the heart of this curriculum, but good research conducted by the Fuller Youth Institute and other research centers also pulses throughout." Have I mentioned yet that I love, love, love well-done research? And that I love, love, love when it is applied to the daily practice of youth ministry? And here are some people that are doing it and doing it well! So exciting!

The Fuller Youth Institute has been conducting research for the past few years on the longevity and quality of youth-group attending students after their graduation from high school. This is the research behind the Sticky Faith curriculum and books. The quote above is an introduction to that curriculum designed as a tool to help foster lasting, meaningful, Christ-centered, transformative, community-oriented faith for high school seniors.

I am excited about this particular curriculum for many good reasons.

1. It includes qualitative and quantitative data over a long enough period of time, from a large enough group to be reliable. What does that mean for someone who might use it? It means that it is dependable. The underlying assumptions are based on well-documented, real-life experiences of a large number of young people who have made the transition out of high school youth group to whatever lies beyond. It means that when they say things like "Approximately 40% of youth group seniors significantly struggle with their faith and with finding a church after graduation. Only about 16% of college freshmen felt well prepared by their youth ministries for what they encountered after graduation." You can trust that they know what they are talking about, and you can take their suggestions seriously.

2. The research translates into a practical, user-friendly form. What? That simply can't be. Oh, but my friends, it is. It is. The curriculum samples (which, by the way are FREE) include preparation points, a main idea, step by step instructions, a hand out, and great verbage for starting meaty discussion. As if that weren't enough there are lists of organizations to help students stay plugged in during college, tips on finding a church, and list of questions for students to ask during a search for a local church.

3. The writers of this curriculum love Jesus, love adolescents, and have the utmost respect for those practicing youth ministry. This makes all the difference in the world. Kara Powell, Brad Griffin, and Chap Clark are people who consistently demonstrate a commitment to the gospel, and will not be moved. They care that those who are in church are meeting Christ and being transformed by the Holy Spirit for the rest of their lives. That means that this curriculum is something of substance. They combine that passion with an understanding of the labors of those in youth ministry who want nothing more than to lead students to Christ and often find it very challenging to do so.

Isn't this so great? Do you know what this means? This means that there is someone out there who has put in the work for you to have reliable, usable tools to help foster gospel-centered faith in young people! Ah! If you have, for some reason, made it this far in the post and not followed a link, follow this one: sign up for the free resources from the Fuller Youth Institute.

Internalization part 2

Internalization as part of identity development

In their article Riding the Highs and Lows of Teenage Faith Development Identity Formation and the Importance of Moratorium, Kara Powell and Meredith Miller explain James Marcia's theory of identity development that states that people go through various stages of rest, unrest, and integration in regards to

their faith. Here are the four stages as they list them:

Diffusion "Persons in diffusion have simply not thought about their identity. They are not sure what they believe about key issues such as religion, politics, gender roles, or occupation, nor are they concerned with them."

Foreclosure "This is a status in which adolescents have definite opinions about their identity, but those opinions have been inherited from external forces rather than cultivated from within themselves. They have stable commitments, but have not experienced exploration or crisis."

Moratorium "They question who they are and what they believe and are unable to land on clearly defined beliefs and standards. This is the stage in which individuals challenge what they have inherited. For this reason, they will often express doubts and uncertainties about what they believe."

Achievement "The goal of identity development is to reach the achieved status. It is the status wherein individuals have explored who they are and what they believe and hold stable commitments to a set of beliefs, values and standards. Their identity is defined, and they have thought through their perspectives."

Internalization might be best equated with the "achievement" stage. Powell and Miller challenge youth workers to engage moratorium with the understanding that it will help bring about a more solid, owned faith in an adolescent. Is internalization the achievement stage? The whole process? I am inclined to say that it is the last two phases of identity development- moratorium and achievement.

What do you think?

Internalization part 1

I did it. I finally picked up my capstone and read through it, paying attention to and injesting the comments of my advisor. He asked me to expand on a concept called Internalization. I found this to be a little annoying on several levels, not the least of which being that it is something that is incredibly hard to define and measure. This is a concept I first learned of from Meredith Miller in The Lockbox Theory’s Implications for Your Students. Fuller Youth Institute mentions this idea quite a bit in their research, and this was my starting point. It is, however, a theme in all of the research about the church drop out rate. In a very small nut shell internalization is an understanding that faith applies to many aspects of life and involves translating that understanding into action.

Internalization involves the translation of one's faith into actions and it involves the ability to articulate one's faith and basic doctrinal beliefs. But those two things are fruit of the internalization itself. It is that subtle and potentially unmeasurable ownership of faith. People with internalizaed faith "get it." Are you starting to see my frustration? Obviously this is incredibly important to longevity in anyone's faith, and, I am sure, one of the goals of every ministry that takes Christianity seriously. How on earth does one expand on and define this even further? Of course I understand the need, but where does one start with explaining this concept?

I am sure there will be many more posts exploring this idea, because I can feel it catching my internally. But for now, I will take up at least a piece of the challenge from Dr. Cooper. Over the next few posts, let me suggest a few basic ideas. I would like to hear your thoughts.

Which one do you resonate with the most? Why? Do you have other suggestions?

Yes, teenagers are graduating from the church

For those who have been in suspense for several years: Yes, teenagers are graduating from high school, and at the same time, ceasing to be regularly involved in churches. Of course there are different definitions of what that looks like, and the research tracking this shift is recent enough that no one is sure if the drop in church attendance will last in the lives of this group of people. What is confirmed by the research is that there is an overall decline in church attendance beyond graduation from high school.

Here are some of the various tidbits of research shamelessly pulled from my capstone paper.

• In Souls in Transition, Christian Smith tracks the religious shifts from ages 13-17 to 18-23 and this research shows an “overall decline in professed importance of religious faith.”[1] Of the students who were Mainline Protestant or Conservative Protestant in high school, Smith reports that these categories lost 13 percent of their baseline totals over the five year period.[2] This includes religious switching or changing of religious affiliation, defined as “stated membership, association, or identification with different major religious traditions and organizations.”[3] Fifty percent of the Mainline Protestant and 36 percent of the Conservative Protestants switched to another religious affiliation, including switching between these two affiliations
• Smith also notes a 24.7 percent loss in those who attended religious service two to three times a month or more, yet there was only an 8.5 percent loss in those who said that faith is “extremely important” or “very important” in daily life.[4] In these categories, Mainline Protestants had the biggest decrease with a loss of 16 percent, while Conservative Protestants lost 13 percent.
• As part of the College Transition Project, Fuller Youth Institute tracked 400 college students who attended youth groups in high through their first three years of college in order to “to better understand the characteristics of youth groups that are associated with a healthy transition to college life and help youth workers develop those qualities in their youth groups.”[5] Some of their findings to date state that “29 percent of the students we’ve surveyed moderately or strongly agree that ‘it’s been difficult to find a church where I feel welcome.’  Although we are not yet finished with our study, this data (along with findings in parallel studies) seem to suggest that about 30-50 percent of students in youth groups struggle in their faith after graduation.”[6]

The numbers by themselves can be daunting. Yes, there is a decline in church attendance after graduation from high school, but these numbers are fleshed out and balanced out by increasing in religious interest, stories of young people who are deeply commited to their faith, and by exploration of the reasons and causes behind the behavior. I found a lot of encouraging material in the midst of this information. But, the purpose of this blog entry is to answer a question from 3 years ago: Around 30 percent of high school students who regularly attended either youth group or a church cease doing so after graduation.

This is a very real phenomena.

I think that we have an equally real challenge to do something about it.

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• [5] http://fulleryouthinstitute.org/college-transition/#research
• [6] Ibid,

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[4] Ibid, 133.

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[1] Smith, Souls in Transition, 113.

[2] Ibid, 105.

[3] Ibid, 103