ABSTRACT: This study examines the impact of teens ministry to church growth in Nigeria. The teens and their well-being have been neglected by the society which gives priority to false success images as opposed to the teens well-being. In today’s church, of all the teenagers’ diverse viewpoints, it cannot be ignored that the teens are the church and the world both in the present and the future. This is seen as in their support for the church members who are adults in teaching them and assuming church responsibilities in the future when they grow older.
In contrast, the teens today have been known to take a nosedive into the technological and consumerism distracting worlds that lead to destruction of their spiritual attachment with Jesus as well as their ties with the family. As is evidence, the dominating secular culture in the world deprives the teens of personal, economic and spiritual tools which will aid the young generation into being Christ’s disciples. In turn, the young generation has sought to neglect their role in spreading the gospel and settled for less since they have been ignored by the society.
The Impact of Teens Ministry to Church Growth
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
The teens have a big role is the ministry which can only be possible through adults demonstrating to them that a discipleship and love culture is embraced in the church (Day & Kurtz, 2017). In our various churches, the teens have been deprived of proper assets for development from the church, parents and school to help them grow and spread the gospel. Such assets will assist in preventing the teens from premarital sexual behavior, drug abuse and anti-social behavior which are rated high risk behaviors. This way, the level of responsibility and pro-social behaviors among the teens will be encouraged and spread by teens to their fellows in the church hence promoting living standards that are healthy and spiritually effective to yield successful and responsible adult society.
To boost these efforts, the church must incorporate contemporary stratagems to the teens ministry in establishing the growth of teens. The elders have a role to be flexible and adjust to the ever changing needs of teens through updating and matching the teens energy and vitality while avoiding old models. The teens must therefore in the long-run not to dilute the gospel message but discover how to live out the good news and encourage others to do so (Nielson, 2016).
The church is a community composed of members from diverse backgrounds who enjoin to share the work of God. The teens must therefore be involved actively in drawing the congregation both old and young to participate responsibly in the work, life and mission of the church and the community (Nielson, 2016). When the teens are drawn to the community it becomes easier for them to comprehend what it is to live in the Christian community.
In the church, the youth must play the same role as adults as the gospel mission calls all believers to glorify and spread the good news of God. Today, the youths in church are learning many Christian faith concepts which is important but they should not be set aside by adults as the Christian calling is a calling to all (Campbell, 2000).
Youth involvement in the church community is crucial since it is in the church that the people of God meet Christ through the Holy Communion in a way that is concrete. Therefore, the churches must be friendly to youths in fostering their growth spiritually. When the youths are welcomed and allowed to serve alongside adults in the church community, they develop a full-fledged member feeling and can be easily identified as a community.
The youths have a role to present their youthful vision and energy in the activities of the church since they have a great deal to offer as youth Christians to the church. Through meaningful roles, the youths can express their faith hence develop a commitment spirit to the church as a community. The church therefore must tap the talents from youths and be friendly to them through valuing the adolescents through adequate response to their needs and carefully giving the audience. The church must facilitate the youth activities through providing them with money and facilities that enable them to grow as disciplines (Thompson, 2017). As the youth commit to the church, the church must also give back to the youths by committing to their development.
Church Growth is a movement within evangelical Christianity which focuses on developing methods to grow churches based on business marketing strategies. It cannot be disputed that teens play a vital role in the life of a Church as they are the leaders of tomorrow and future of the church(Day, D., & Kurtz, C. (2017). The elderly stands out but teens contributions have been shinning and have always been flag bearers of every Church. For any tangible growth to take place in any Christian community, the teens must be significant in that process of growth (Nielson, 2016).
This is the more reason why wise nations, countries, groups and organization focus more on the development of teens so that the future of such investments would never be improvised or blind(Nel, M., 2015). It is therefore of vital importance in today’s Church to prepare assiduously teens for the tasks they would naturally face in the coming future. It is only when we have nourished our teens that they in-turn develop the Church. The questions are “what amount of attention do we give the teens and what level of devotion does the teens give to the church.
The teens of today have very high ideals, and to deny this would be grossly unfair. But we must admit that very often these ideals can sour, can be perverted and can be exploited. Often young people ultimately relinquish their ideals if they suspect that the situation is hopeless; if they conclude that nowhere can these ideals be fulfilled.
Unfortunately, this is the usual progression of events today. “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12). This is an admonition on the need to live a Holy and blameless life addressed to a young man, Timothy. But, premarital sex, insolent speech, materialism, ruthlessness, theft and violence are some of the common vices generally found among Christian teens today (Folmsbee, C., 2007).
Disappointments lead to abysmal falls, often to depths lower than those they condemned when their idealism was fresh. Where this does not happen, ideals are exploited by false prophets of good. The sectarians far from the fullness of truth are able to inspire teens to make such amazing sacrifices Yet at the same time, the Orthodox Church, possessing the fullness of Truth, has a real difficulty in keeping her teens (Abednego: 1989). It could be that in ignoring the high ideals and potential moral heroism of our teens we have failed to familiarize them with our examples of such heroism, displayed by our own young, even the very young, who loved Christ and His Church in past ages.
The teens are important fabrics in the society. Can there be any society without teens? Obviously no, that is why we must see to it that our teens find their rightful places in the church. The teens ministry seems to be in the midst of a crisis, since it fails young people because of its inability to help them develop into mature Christians (Klinenberg, E. 2013). Not every churches are called to establish the teens ministry but all churches are obliged to impact on teens ministrys. David and Pat Alexander emphasized that:
“Salvation is God’s gift, but it carries with it the obligation to live and behave, from that point on, as God wants. This means deliberately discarding the old (selfish way of life), shedding former habits, and letting the new life change our thinking and remold our pattern of behavior.
According to the Alexander’s view, supra, our salvation carries with it a responsibility for a new lifestyle; we are expected to change our thinking, remold our lifestyle, and to live a life of obedience to the word of God. Our Lord Jesus explained that:
Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who builds his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the wind blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beats against that house and it fell with a great crash (Matthew 7:24 – 27).
It is therefore of vital importance in today’s Church to prepare the single’s ministry for the tasks they would naturally face in the coming future. It is only when we have nourished our teens that they in-turn develop the Church (De Vries, M 2004).
Church growth begins with church health and not the other way around. We see in nature that healthy things grow. This is by no means a new concept, but it’s still true. The teens must therefore in the long-run not to dilute the gospel message but discover how to live out the good news and encourage others to do so (Nielson, J. 2016). (The Impact of Teens Ministry to Church Growth)
The sole aim of the church is not only for the edification of believers and its congregants but to take part in what the triune God is doing in the world. The church is in its nature missionary, because it is understood to be ‘a community of witness, called into being and equipped by God, and sent into the world to testify to and participate in Christ’s work’ (Niemandt, C. J. P. 2012). The church has a responsibility towards society, and such responsibility should not exclude the single’s ministry, which forms part of the church participating in God’s mission on earth. From this research, we will discover what a healthy church is like and how teens ministry can boost church growth.
The Impact of Teens Ministry to Church Growth
1.2 Statement of the Problem
One key problem is the inability to examine teens ministry and church growth. Another problem is how best to measure numerical growth. A variety of indicators for attendance and occasional offices are available, but all are affected to some degree by measurement error and random fluctuations. Such variability poses particular problems with small churches, where the addition or subtraction of just a few people produces large proportional changes in the totals. Today, a great percentage of our Christian teens are living a life of disobedience to the Word of God, they are copying the patterns of this world with dexterity. Today, the lifestyle of the teens is such that it is very difficult to have a distinction between Christian teens and of those who are not Christians.
How can we change the perspective of our teens who are easily lured and enticed by worldly lifestyle? This research is vital because it aims at making an analysis of the Christian teens’ lifestyle, enlightening them and warning the victims of the dangers ahead. Most organizations especially in church set up always want their teens to live and practice the godly lifestyles (character trait of Jesus), the absence of this brings a very big problem between the teens and the leadership of the church. In some instances, the teens are removed from position of leadership or placed on church discipline. This indicates that Christian organizations are after godly lifestyles that will lead to a very good behavior and achievement of its goals and objective. Therefore, study on The Impact of Teens Ministry to Church Growth becomes imperative.
1.3 Objectives of the study
1.4 Research Questions
1.5 Research hypotheses
1.6 Significance of the study
This research work will assist churches, ministries, pastors, etc in discovering the vital roles teens play in the life of a Church as they are the leaders of tomorrow and future of every church. From this research, we will discover what a healthy church is like and how teens ministry can boost church growth. This research is very significant because teens are the future of every organization especially the Church. Many, if not all church denominations in Nigeria have been affected by the change in the lifestyles of their teens. The researcher aims at digging the root cause, the effect and the appropriate way of solving the worldly lifestyles affecting our teens so that organizations, parents and teens will benefit from the research findings.
1.7 Scope/Delimitations of the study
A research of this nature on the assessment of the impact of teens ministry in the churchseems broad such that it cannot be exhausted in this research work. For this reason, the research shall focus on what the Bible teaches about Christian teens and godly lifestyles, the root causes of moral degradation and eroding of our Christian values among Christian Teens, its effect on the teens and society, and how they can overcome these negative tendencies. On the other hand, this research shall focus on some selected churches in Nigeria only because of security challenges, time, and budgetary constraints. The researcher shall sample the opinion of some selected Christian teens from different churches in Nigeria through a questionnaire.
1.8 Limitations of study
Financial constraint– Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).
Time constraint– The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other academic work. This consequently will cut down on the time devoted for the research work.
1.9 Definition of terms
Many terms have been used in this work but few uncommon English terms are defined below. These definitions should be understood in their utility for our purpose:
Teens: Teens is the time of life when one is young, but often means the time between childhood and adulthood (maturity).
Infants: from birth to nine months
Toddlers: from 10 month to 30 months
Early children: 30 months to 72 months
School age: 72 month to 12 years
Adolescent: 12 years to 15 years
Teenage: 15 years to 19 years
Ministry: In Christianity, ministry is an activity carried out by Christians to express or spread their faith, the prototype being the Great Commission. The Encyclopedia of Christianity defines it as “carrying forth Christ’s mission in the world”, indicating that it is “conferred on each Christian in baptism.”
Teen Ministry: Teen ministry, also commonly referred to as teens group, is an age-specific religious ministry of faith groups or other religious organizations, whose mission is to involve and engage with young people who attend their places of worship, or who live in their community.
