WACO, Texas (ABP) — Serving meals to homeless people at a church-sponsored shelter can have a greater impact than sitting in a pew every Sunday morning on how a teenager's faith develops, a new study has concluded.
“Involvement in community service is far more significant to the faith development of teens than involvement in worship,” said Michael Sherr, assistant professor in the School of Social Work at Baylor University.
But volunteer service in faith-motivated ministries to meet human needs has a direct impact on how involved teenagers become in a variety of religious practices — including worship, Bible study and prayer, he noted.
“The best scenario is involvement in worship and prayer, living out faith through service, followed by time committed to study and reflection,” he said. “The ideal is preaching the gospel and doing the gospel together.”
Sherr worked with two colleagues in the School of Social Work — Dean Diana Garland and Associate Dean Dennis Myers — and Terry Wolfer from the University of South Carolina on a study that examined how community service is related to the faith maturity and faith practices of adolescents in churches.
As part of a larger study funded by the Lilly Endowment, the researchers surveyed 631 adolescents from 35 Protestant churches in six states. They found an indisputable link between community service, faith maturity and faith practices.
“The fact is that service that gives kids a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives has a profound impact on their faith,” Garland said. “Faith is deepened when they feel called out to do something. Far more than recreational activities or retreats — or even Bible study and worship — it really matures their faith.”
That realization should make a difference in the way churches seek to reach teens and help them develop as Christians, she noted.
“Churches have tended to see service as an add-on. This study suggests they might think of it at the heart of ministry — as a way of engaging young people who are looking for their lives to have meaning and purpose and who find it pouring themselves out in response to the needs of others,” she said.
It also offers a way for churches to influence the lives of young people who may be reluctant to attend worship services or Sunday school classes but who are willing to join their friends in volunteer service, Sherr added.
If mature Christian adults work alongside teenagers and help them process what they learn through service, those teachable moments can make a profound impact on teens, he noted. “Their faith is developing, and they don't have to be in pews to do it,” Sherr said.
The greater the interaction between teenagers and the people who receive ministry — and the deeper the relationship between the teens and adult Christian mentors — the more profound the impact on faith development, Garland added. “It's a continuum,” she noted.
A one-day project cleaning up a city park, where teens work alongside adult role models, can have some impact. However, a project that puts teens in direct contact with people in need — such as volunteering in a homeless shelter or building a Habitat for Humanity house — makes a deeper impression. And ongoing contact with the same people over a long time, such as making Meals on Wheels deliveries or regularly visiting particular nursing-home residents has the greatest potential for shaping faith, she explained.
“In the depth of relationships, young people learn to find God in one another,” Garland said. “It's the interaction that matters. We learn faith not only by acquiring knowledge, but — more significantly — through relationships.”
In their report, the researchers concluded: “Involvement in authentic service to real needs, alongside parents or other adults whenever possible, accompanied by reflection on the connections between service experiences and religious teachings and other practices — perhaps with some pizza and ‘fun' mixed in — can serve as a fruit-bearing path for ministry to teenagers.
Moreover, this approach to ministry treats teenagers as partners in ministry rather than objects of ministry, an important and empowering distinction for developing new generations of spiritual leaders for today as well as tomorrow.”
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