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MEMO to elders and educators: Don’t keep this magazine! Please give it to a high school student.
MEMO to high school students: Please read this magazine and share it with classmates. As students contemplate their futures, one of their most life-trajectory-altering decisions will be choosing which, if any, educational institution to attend after high school. Next fall, about 5 million U.S. high school graduates will enroll in degree-granting schools of higher education. Of those students, 92 percent say their religious beliefs are important to them; indeed, one-third report that faith is the most important influence in their lives. But will faith in God persist? Will it rise or fall in college? According to a five-year project headed by Barna Group President David Kinnaman, 61 percent of believing high school students will walk away from the church in college. Many will lose their faith altogether. In his new book, “You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church and Rethinking Church,” Kinnaman explores trends in faith development as teens transition from their family nests into adulthood. A parallel six-year study has been conducted by Fuller Theological Seminary’s Fuller Youth Institute, titled, “Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids.” Those books address the roles of church and parents, hopefully to reverse the downward trends. However, for those Christian high school students now heading to college, it’s late to correct what Mom, Dad or Pastor Taylor has or hasn’t done. It now falls to the student — you — to determine how you will set the trajectory for your journey of faith as an adult. Will your faith in God last? Will it rise or fall in college? One thing is for sure: The environment will change radically from that of high school. While it is true that believing teachers in public elementary and secondary schools are prohibited from using the classroom to propagate their faith, unbelieving ones aren’t free to promote atheism either. In contrast, many a college professor on many a campus will spew criticisms of the faith that has formed many of their students — often shredding the heart of beliefs on which students had built their life hopes and dreams. Face it. Christian faith is an easy target. Too often in history, the church has found itself on the wrong side of public debates — from Copernicus to William Jennings Bryan. Too many times we have behaved badly — from the Crusades to the Inquisition. That history deserves to be told and those criticisms need to be considered. But most errors need not be repeated. And most questions can be answered. Most faith assaults can be countered. But in many schools, deer-in-the-headlights freshmen lose their bearings. They give up on God. And then there’s the simple reality that unbridled independence sometimes breeds the kind of dissipation exposed in Jesus’ story of the prodigal son. Temptations multiply in this season of a person’s life. What’s to do? One possibility: Consider attending a church-related college. The scholarship in such schools often ranks among the best anywhere. And while they don’t shelter their students from the toughest questions, they generally provide an environment that invites the exchange of ideas, respecting those of students — and of those invisible parents, pastors, youth leaders and Sunday School teachers whose voices still whisper in students’ memories. Another suggestion: Determine to find a circle of Christian fellowship before attending the first class. The Fuller study asserts that finding a church in the first two weeks on campus will set the mold for the rest of your college years. Find a circle of believing friends — including a few upperclassmen who have already forded the white water of the freshman experience. Heading off to college holds such promise for adventure, for learning, for personal growth. Its potential for spiritual growth is just as enormous for those who apply themselves.
—JHH
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