Spiritual Stabilizers, Introduction

What keeps young adults in church? Surprisingly the answer is quite simple and very Biblical … imagine that. The answer also does not begin in young adult years, but while they are children and teenagers. Proverbs 22:9 (NAS) stated “train up child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Seeds planted in a young life will sprout … eventually.

Spiritual stabilizers are the experiences that we include in child and teenage years that will cause them to stay in church. The elements were uncovered in research but have been underscored throughout Scripture. The experience range from church leadership to church activities, parenting to marriage, education to authority, etc. If our desire is for our children to be in church when they are older then we must plant those seeds of “churchedness” today.

Tom Crites and Steve Parr wrote “Why They Stay,” which was the predecessor to this study. Crites and Parr surveyed over 1300 national Millennials to find childhood and teenage experiences that cause young adult church attendance. Spiritual stabilizers utilized the same survey to gather information from over 2,000 Boomers, Busters and Millennials of Tennessees. The spiritual stabilizer study found the same results of the Crites and Parr study but added similarities and differences of multiple generations. The spiritual stabilizer study uncovered information such as the experiences that have decreased, increased or stayed the same throughout generations.

In the next series of blogs, spiritual stabilizers will be presented in the following categories:

Increasing in influence

Decreasing in influence

Maintained influence throughout generations

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david evans is the Senior Pastor for Springfield Baptist church.  Feel free to contact david via e-mail DavidEvans@Springfield-Baptist.com. In the meantime, for Great Commission ideas check out other ideas in other blogs found on this site. Thank you for visiting!