This past Saturday, we had a wonderful turnout for our To Save a Life Movie Event and we took the opportunity to survey our teens about their experience with such serious issues as depression and suicide. We closed the survey with an important question: "Do you wish you had more adults you could talk to about these issues?"
Perhaps surprisingly, more teens answered "YES" to this question than any other question on the survey.
Then again, maybe this shouldn't surprise us. After all, the National Study of Youth and Religion recently confirmed what many already suspected, that teens actually DO want the loving presence of adults in their lives. And, what's more important, the research shows they NEED them.
To put it in the terms of the life-changing movie we watched Saturday night, loving and caring adults in the lives of our teenagers are nothing short of LIFE-SAVERS. And the question we each have to ask is this: How many Life-Savers am I putting in my child's life? Former Family Pastor Reggie Joiner puts it this way: We need to "Widen the Circle" by pursuing strategic relationships for our kids, and he's not talking about play-dates to build their social skills or lunches with coaches to increase their playing time. He's talking about the need for placing mentors who can model a life of faith for our teens as they seek to find a faith worth living.
So who are the adults in our community whom you most want your children to emulate?
Identify them.
Seek them out.
Put them in your teen's life.
And watch their faith grow.
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