Youth pastors: don’t be afraid of the “magic number 18″
Have you ever heard the oft-repeated piece of conventional wisdom that if somebody does not come to the Christian faith by the time they turn 18, they likely never will? It’s a scary statistic, and it puts a lot of pressure on parents and youth workers to see their kids come to Christ before they turn 18 and are presumably lost forever. But a recent post at Intersect’s AlreadyNotYet blog argues that parents and youth pastors shouldn’t be so quick to use that phrase. Faith, the post says, isn’t quite as black-and-white as the phrase suggests–and there’s nothing magical about turning 18 that will keep somebody from developing faith in Christ later in life.
So don’t despair if you aren’t seeing mature faith in every 18-year-old kid in the youth group–and don’t think that “saving” somebody before age 18 will spare them spiritual difficulty later in life! Read the full post for more.
