There is an odd exchange that takes place, in the life of a recent high school graduate, the day he moves away to go to college, or other post high school destinations of choice. The night before, he lives under his parent’s roof, which incorporates everything from a curfew to a home-cooked meal. Then, literally the next morning, he packs up and leave the nest with all rules, standards, expectations, and protections that he deems unnecessary for the journey ahead. For the majority of teenagers, they blaze a new trail of identity that matches the land of opportunity visible on the next horizon.
Prior to graduation, most kids are raised by caring adults who set up boundaries that protect them and kept them from harm. For those who have grown up in the church, they often have been raised to see life from within a protective bubble of faith, believing that the world outside of these bubbled walls is harmful. But, as these kids grow older, they began to see that life outside the bubble has a more manicured, greener yard, causing them to become complacent with the life of faith that they grew up in. As teenagers, they long for the newer pasture and begin to view those guiding boundaries of their childhood as restrictive rules and, therefore, after high school think: “Now I can go live ‘my’ life and be who ‘I’ want to be and do what ‘I’ want to do.” In my experience, most parents struggle through the child-rearing years only to get to their high school senior’s last year at home and become frantic and fearful that he/she has not been prepared well for the next stage of living. As parents, we spent so much of our time trying to survive that we often fail to prepare our kids to thrive. We want to give them all the things that we never had and provide for them in such a way that they can enjoy their childhood and create memories. We all want our children to grow up into adulthood and be independent, and doing so with an understanding of how to aline one’s life with the path that God has prepared them for. But, unfortunately, as the parents, we often protect them from, much more than we have prepared them for, that journey of life on their own.
The statics for the percent of Christians who “lose their faith” after high school varies greatly depending on which poling agency you look at. Some say it is 50%, while many more say it is higher. For so long, college was deemed the evil culprit responsible for turning well over half of professing Christians astray as they go to the playground portrayed in films like Animal House and Old School. There is a lot of truth in the fact that college life strives hard to live up to it’s wild reputation, but I believe that solely putting the blame on college is like accusing the Big Mac for making you fat (which has been done, I’m sure). After decades of finger pointing towards the blames of college, reports have even recently been produced to defend life in college by saying that students are less likely to decline in their faith than those who graduate from high school and go into the workforce. Many of these reports claim that the high school to college transition is, either, highly overstated or partially resolved due to more campus ministries and an universal openness of discussions of faith on campus. But, I disagree. It seems to me that those holding that perspective are missing the core issue. Colleges may actually be becoming more of a nurturing environment for faith, but this statistical decline is not on the hands of college life. Rather, the issue is due to the lack of spiritual development and preparedness of teenagers leaving home and going out into the world. It is not that these kids are not prepared for college, rather they are not prepared for life on their own, which for many happens to be discovered in college. As for the percent of floundering Christian students in college, I rest on the non-statistical conclusion of “too many.” Yes, there is a great amount of spiritual distraction on a college campus, in an entry leveled workplace, or in the barracks of the armed forces, but this epidemic level of fruitless Christianity is not a victimization of a new environment. The new setting only gives permission to an immaturity that has previously been kept at bay. This is one of the reasons why I don’t like the term “lose their faith.” Either these individuals are immature, distracted, unfocused, and possibly deceived believers or they have spent their life going through the spiritual motions and have never made a committed decision to accept and follow Jesus. Either way, they have not all moved to the next chapter of life and lost their connection to the God of the universe. This is why, in my first book, Lost in Transition, I say that these young Christians simply fail to “pursue growth and maturity in their faith in college”. That is a much more realistic explanation of the issue of faith and adolescents.
If kids are going to excel at this next stage of life, they have to be prepared. Think for a moment what would happen if a college-bound student finished high school without preparing academically for college. How would he do? Well, chances are he would be back home delivery pizzas before you could say “college dropout.” We would not expect a teenager who has never played a down of football to walk-on for a major college team, yet we don’t think anything about sending a spiritually immature teenager off on her own to make wise and logical choices. For many, the next step after high school is just that, the next step. We watch kids graduate and move on the college, the military, or the workforce like they are going from one grade to the next. “Surely, they will do well,” we say as they are excited to live away from home for the first time. Then, we act so surprised when they stray from the person that we once knew them to be.
For some parents, there is a misconception that it is the role of the church, and more specifically the youth pastor, to prepare students for the challenges and freedoms of life after high school. I was sharing about this issue to a group of Christian parents once and I asked the group about the reason why so many Christian students struggle during this transition. One mother shared that her son struggled because they lived out in a rural community and did not go to a church with a strong youth program. She simply said that there was no one to teach her child how to handle life after high school. If one goes to a church with an active student ministry, then he is fortunate, but that still does not guarantee that a student will receive the needed instruction for making a healthy transition moving forward. A youth ministry leader can not be the primary discipler of every teenager that comes through the doors. Even though those in youth ministry are trained and experienced to deal with students and can be a great teacher and mentor to your child, it is logistically impossible to make a lasting impact with every child involved in the ministry. I say that as someone who has spent decades in youth ministry, both in the church and para-church settings. Often the youth leader is the one who best understands the challenges of life after high school, and may even be the one pouring the most time equipping a child, but that process is not designed to be the sole faith preparing agent in the life of your child.
At the heart of this issue is the fact that kids are not adequately prepared for life beyond the often plush confines of childhood. They spend twelve years preparing for the academic challenges of college, but the spiritual, social, emotional, and personal challenges that they will certainly face, post-high school, are left to chance as the student leaves for a more independent ground to stand on. Like myself at that age, most transitioning students leave high school without a plan or a vision for who they can be at the next stage of life.