Stacked Against the Odds: Preparing Teens to Stand Firm in the Faith

Abstract

What does it mean to make a promise? Every year, there are many young Christians around the world who make their promise to remain faithful to God and to His Word. It would be easy to keep that promise in a perfect world, but Satan, the world, and our sinful flesh work very hard to distract and lure believers away from their loving God. Young adults have stated various reasons as to why they have fallen away from the church. Many of these reasons have been amplified by cultural changes that have done a great deal of harm to teens' emotional life and faith life. A responsibility and privilege of the church is to consider ways in which they can continue to share the means of grace with teens no matter the cultural changes that exist in each time period. This thesis will focus on the blessings of having a relationship with young adults as the church asks itself: How do we treat teens? What do we teach teens? How can we best incorporate teens? Answering these questions is the best way for the church to equip its young adults to remain steadfast in their promise to God and to His Word, even when the odds are stacked against them.