One of the most important Canadian studies on helping youth stick with their faith is called Hemorrhaging Faith: Why and When Canadian Young Adults are Leaving, Staying and Returning to the Church.

This pivotal study contains survey responses from over 2,000 Canadian young adults and information gleaned from personal interviews of some of the respondents. It suggests several ways that parents, youth workers, children’s ministry staff, and others in the church can help youth to continue to follow Jesus. Here are four of them:

Help Parents Engage Spiritually

One of the recurring themes that surfaced was that those who continue to be engaged in their local church often had parents who modelled an authentic faith. They saw their parents praying and reading the Bible. Yet, even more than that, they saw their parents living out their faith in a way that impacted their everyday lives. They were not afraid to show their children how a Christian worldview can help them navigate through the challenges and opportunities they face. The implication is that when we help parents continue to grow in their faith, their children benefit in faith-sustaining ways.

Facilitate “God Moments”

One of the key differences between those who stay in the church and those who leave is the extent to which they experienced God. Those who can recall answers to prayer or who experienced God in worship, service, community or in some other way are more likely to press on with God later in life. Many of those still tracking with God experienced Him in a profound way through a camp or a short-term missions trip. The implication is that we need to create youth-friendly spaces (or encourage movement toward already created spaces) that help them experiment with and stretch their faith.

Invite Youth to be Vital Members of the Church Community

When youth feel like they truly belong in a church community, they are much more likely to stay within the church. In this kind of community, people care about them. Some even mentor them. Others in the church community see their gifts and encourage them to serve in meaningful ways. This gives youth an opportunity to make a difference – to feel like they are an integral part of the community. What are the implications for the rest of the church? Be friendly with youth. Include them in meaningful ways. Pray for and with them. Encourage them. Empower them to live out God’s call on their lives.

Make Christianity Relevant

Do you want to take your ministry to the next level? Are you unclear as to next steps? I have found the following process helpful for discerning and implementing strategic priorities that will help a ministry build momentum toward a desired future.

Proceed Prayerfully

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of bathing the entire discernment process in prayer. As you go through the following steps, take time to pray periodically and to practice (and encourage others to practice) a posture of listening to God’s voice.

Clarify Your Mission

In a previous blog, Six Steps to Creating a Compelling Mission Statement for Your Group, I describe a process for identifying your group’s mission. If you don’t have a mission statement for your ministry yet, I would encourage you to read the blog and create one. It’s difficult to discern meaningful strategic priorities without an overarching goal in mind.

Articulate Core Values

What do you think are your ministry’s core values (this is a good exercise to do with your ministry team)? What do you think that your ministry should value? Come up with a list of 6-8 current and desired values that you believe are foundational to your ministry. One way to do this is to have your team brainstorm adjectives or phrases that describe the current ministry. Then, have them think about their dream ministry and go through the same brainstorming process.

Discern God’s Vision for Your Ministry

With your ministry team, project yourself into the future. It is five years from now and you have, amazingly enough, developed the most incredible ministry. Now, it’s your job, as a team, to describe it - as if you were able to see it, realistically around you. Make sure that you use your ministry’s core values from the previous step. It’s also very important that your emerging vision aligns with your mission.

Identify Strategic Priorities

Now, that you are clear on your ministry’s mission, core values and vision, you can identify strategic priorities. What are the steps you need to take to realize your vision? Identify three to five big objectives (e.g. develop a mentoring approach). For each objective, come up with SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound) goals that will help you make progress with each objective (e.g. hold a one-day training session on how to coach others on June 20).

Execute the Plan

Having recruited many volunteers over the years, I know the importance of immediate recruitment strategies. Yet, before I share these short-term strategies, I want to emphasize the importance of having a long-term recruitment strategy (see my blog on 10 Long-Term Strategies for Recruiting Volunteers). The following immediate strategies work best when combined with the long-term strategies.

1. Pray for God to raise up workers

We must never underestimate the power of prayer when it comes to recruiting volunteers. Prayer is both a long-term and short-term strategy for mobilizing people to serve.

2. Approach former program participants

Who are the people who have served in your ministry in the past? They may have taken a break from volunteering in your ministry, but that doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t come back if asked.

3. Ask current volunteers to approach others

Ministry leaders sometimes think that they’re the only ones who should recruit people for their ministries. A better approach is to encourage everyone on the team to recruit within their networks.

4. Look for people who have an affinity with your ministry

When I agreed to chair the Missions Committee at my church, I asked the church staff and the former chairperson for a list of people in the church who had gone on missions trips. I knew some in this group would be excellent candidates for a missions-focused committee.

5. Approach people in person

In most cases, a face-to-face invitation to participate in a ministry is much more effective than an impersonal public plea for help.

6. Create short-term volunteer opportunities

Most people will not jump into a long-term volunteer position right away. They are much more likely to help with a one-time event or to participate occasionally. In fact, Helen Little in her book called Volunteers: How to Get Them; How to Keep Them, says that 75% of volunteers in a member organization like a church will be occasional volunteers.

7. Expose people gradually to your ministry