Keeping Teenagers Connected to Christ and His Church

Abstract

Every year in the United States countless teenagers promise to remain faithful to Christ and his Church on their confirmation day only to be never heard from again. The Wisconsin Synod is not immune to these tendencies either. Over the years there have been various suggestions of ways to stop this cycle. The purpose of this paper is to take what other respected people have studied and written concerning teenagers and their reasons for leaving churches and applying that to our situation in WELS. To do this we researched resources from a wide variety of Christian denominations as well as surveying numerous pastors within our fellowship. After sifting through the literature, articles, and surveys we have come up with some theoretical as well as practical ideas to keeping teenagers in the 21st century connected to Christ and his Church.