It’s graduation season! Heather and I will attend many high school graduations (and one this year for my own son). Of course there will be other graduations too, like college or graduate school. Completing college or graduate school is the effective end of adolescence for most young people. It means launching into a career and moving out of the home to independence. Graduating from high school often means leaving the protective world of the home and church, and perhaps moving away to attend college. While one might argue that college graduation is a bigger shift in life than high school, high school graduation is more spiritually treacherous. More young people have spiritual crises entering college than entering the workforce. Repeated studies have shown that college is the most spiritually perilous time in a young person's life.
I don't think there is any great mystery why this is so. First, students often rely upon parents for their behavior patterns. Church attendance is part of the family pattern, so they go to church. When they go to college, church attendance is likely not part of the pattern for people around them. Students get invited to late night parties or study sessions on Saturday evenings. Everyone sleeps in on Sunday or uses the time for recreation or study. A student who prioritizes Sunday worship, along with preparation for worship, will be swimming against the stream – a new experience for them. (This may not be the case, of course, for young people who attend many evangelical colleges or who live at home during college.)
Second, students will be surrounded for the first time with people who live completely different lives and believe completely different things. Behavior that would have been considered shameful or terribly foolish in their home or church will be aggressively promoted and engaged in during college. This is not only true in public or state colleges, but conservative colleges can be cocoons of immorality and debauchery also. Instead of being discouraged from participating in immorality and dissipation, students will encounter people who will shame and marginalize them if they don't participate. It is a jarring and disorienting experience. One that many students end up falling victim to.
Third, students will take classes possibly for the first time from teachers who are nearly uniformly anti-Christian and aggressively progressive politically. Our nation is facing up to some of this, but it is unlikely to change in non-evangelical schools for a long time. Students who have been taught all of their lives to respect and learn from their teachers will have instructors who are diametrically opposed to their basic values. These teachers are educated people who are accustomed to dealing with bright-eyed Christian freshmen. I talked with a professor who confessed to me that one of his goals was to dismantle Evangelical Christian faith; he delighted in it.
That doesn't mean that all professors are “bad guys.” There are still Christians in universities. There are also non-Christians who are faithful to their callings and treat people from other belief systems respectfully. (Personally, I had an atheist, Marxist-feminist philosophy teacher in community college who was wonderful.) But, students will encounter many professors who will challenge or even disparage their faith in ways they are not used to.
Does this mean that college has to be a spiritually damaging experience? Not at all. What it means is that the risks and challenges of college need to be measured and prepared for. And the preparation is simpler than one might assume, though it is vital.
The first bit of preparation can happen in students’ middle and high school years. They should learn what and why they believe. They should learn the doctrines of their faith, as well as the content of God's Word. The best way to spot counterfeit truth is to be exposed constantly to true truth. They should also be exposed to common challenges to the Christian faith and the answers to those challenges. They may not remember the details of the responses, but they will remember that the responses exist, and they can retrieve them if needed.
Students should also be challenged in middle and high school to live godly lives and be taught the necessity and path of repentance. They should learn something of fighting against sin and their own flesh. They should learn what it is like to be in real Christian community.
The second bit of preparation is finding a new church before young people move to college so they can begin attending there the absolute first Sunday they are at college. This should be a commitment made in advance to prioritize God's worship above all else. It is actually very helpful if they learn to set aside the whole day for worship and rest - something students rarely do. I have seen college students transformed by attending Sunday worship and spending the rest of the day with people from their church. It keeps the Word of God flowing into their lives and reminds them of their identity in God's family.
The final bit of preparation is joining a student ministry. Many colleges and universities have our denominational ministry on campus, Reformed University Fellowship/Ministries. This is a great way to connect with other students their age who are probably believers. They can worship with their peers and get help and support specific to their experience at college. Other Bible-believing ministries (such as InterVarsity or Cru/Campus Crusade) are assuredly on campus if RUF is not. Students need to join the ministry groups the very first week they are on campus. In fact, they need to consider what they will be joining before they ever set foot on campus.
Students also should remember that they have a home to return to; people to ask for prayer, advice and support; and a church that sends them. Checking back in is essential. Jesus sent His disciples out and brought them back to debrief, challenge, and encourage them. It was part of His plan to build them up before they launched completely into the work of the Kingdom. May our Youth be built up in the same way - to be agents of the Kingdom, in the world but not of it.
Travis Hutchinson, Interim Pastor of Youth & Families
