Found this article from Barna that breaks down what teenagers are looking for in a church. Pretty interesting stuff. It really makes me wonder how to prioritize our ministries to be more effective to the common teen church attender.
A new study from The Barna Group explored the spiritual lives of today's teens and what their expectations are in a church. For teens, prayer was the most common spiritual activity. Three quarters of teens (72%) said they pray in a typical week. Attending worship service (embraced by 48 percent of today's teens) was the next most common activity. Approximately, one-third said they attend Sunday school (35%), attend youth group (33%), participate in a small group (32%) and read the Bible (31%).
Teen expectations related to church were also explored. Forty-five percent described that "to worship or make a connection with God" was very important and was the most common element sought by young people. Other elements were "to better understand what I believe" (42%), "to spend time with close friends" (34%), "to get encouraged or inspired" (34%), or "to volunteer to help others" (30%).
Teens were asked to identify the most influential teaching they received from church in the last 12 months that helped to shape their views. The most common areas of content revolved around moral and ethical standards (65%) and relationships (62%), followed by faith traditions (55%) and personal evangelism (50%).
Less than one-third of churched teens said they remembered any helpful content related to the following topics: media, movies and television (35%); money and finances (30%); the supernatural world (28%); leisure activities (27%); government and law (26%); art and music (22%), health issues (21%) and technology (9%).
No comments:
Post a Comment