Why Jr. High/Youth Ministry?

Here's a statistic that I've heard many times in the last few years. This is what spurs so many of us on in doing youth ministry. We hope to be among the people that can continue to help students make that life changing decision to start their relationship with Christ.

Thanks to research by Kara Powell we now have a little more hard evidence than we have in the past. Below are her findings:

You’ve perhaps heard the infamous statistic that 80-85% of people who become Christians do so before age 14. We youth workers especially love quoting that data when we’re asking for a larger ministry budget.

There hasn’t appeared to be lots of hard data to back up that stat. But maybe that’s changed.
Sociologist Dr. Christian Smith and his team at the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) have studied teenagers of all religious persuasions (Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Religiously Indifferent, etc.). He reports in his new book, Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults, that 85% of those 18-23 who have ever made a commitment to God did so before age 14.

Remember, the study includes teenagers and young adults of all religious persuasions, and it’s not entirely clear from the book what students mean what they say they have “made a commitment to God”.

But nonetheless, this is the best data I’ve seen in a while that supports that 85% statistic.