Creating a Research Profile

Research Profile

AN ASSESSMENT OF DROPOUT RATES OF FORMER YOUTH MINISTRY PARTICIPANTS IN CONSERVATIVE SOUTHERN BAPTIST MEGACHURCHES Research Problem

Researchers and youth evangelists such as Baucham (2007) argue that most young people are leaving the church after completing high school. They claim that the youth ministry has failed to keep the American youth in church when they join college. Youth ministry experts and writers such as Barna (1991) and Lytch (2004) also agree that people who are committed to regular church attendance as teenagers stop doing so when they enter adulthood. Based on these statistics, there have been calls to abolish the youth ministry or implement a major paradigm shift. Although the youth ministry has been facing some challenges, it is important to examine the basis of the criticism. Most of the criticism directed at the youth ministry is based on few statistics that may be inconclusive or flawed. The research from which the statistics are drawn has logical, statistical, and analytical flaws. If these arguments are based on unreliable statistics, the solutions suggested for the youth ministry dilemma need to be revised or withdrawn. Therefore, it is important to investigate the link between the difference in the degree of youth ministry commitment during and after high school. This would gauge the effectiveness of the youth ministry in achieving its goals of reaching students and bringing them to salvation and lifelong discipleship.

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Research Purpose Statement

The purpose of this study was to examine the claim that 70 to 90 percent of actively involved youth ministry participants drop out of church after high school.

Research Questions

1. To what degree, if any, are young adults who exhibited Level 1 commitment levels to youth ministry during high school currently committed to a local church?

2. To what degree, if any, are young adults who exhibited Level 2 commitment levels to youth ministry during high school currently involved with a local church?

3. To what degree, if any, are young adults who exhibited Level 3 commitment levels to youth ministry during high school currently involved with a local church?

4. To what degree, if any, are young adults who exhibited Level 4 commitment levels to youth ministry during high school currently involved with a local church?

5. To what degree, if any, are demographic variables significantly related to levels of youth ministry commitment and current local church involvement?

6. What is the relationship between different levels of youth ministry commitment during high school and the level of current local church involvement?

Delimitations of the Research

In order to gain a more comprehensive and longer-term understanding of post-youth ministry retention, this study was delimited to young adults who graduated from high school prior to the year 2008. Sampling young adults of different age segments provided the researcher a snapshot of variations in the data as young adults progress through the various seasons of life. Furthermore, measuring some of these young adults as much as ten years after high school may have reduced extraneous factors such as late adolescent development, juvenile rebelliousness, and collegiate moratorium. Ideally, by this time, most young adults have made decisions about faith and church involvement that were more permanent and intensive.

The current research study was also delimited to theologically conservative Southern Baptist churches; therefore, this research may not be generalizable to denominations outside the Southern Baptist Convention or churches that hold divergent theological beliefs on the traditional orthodox doctrines such as the inerrancy of Scripture, the bodily resurrection of Christ, the Gospel, and the Trinity.

Furthermore, this study sampled "dynamic" youth ministries in a megachurch context. Consequently, this research may not necessarily generalize to smaller churches or churches that are not engaging in intentional and systematic evangelism and discipleship of young people under the supervision of a veteran youth pastor. Finally, the study was delimited to Southern Baptist young adults who were committed to their youth ministry during high school. While further research into this area may yield rich data concerning those who were unchurched and have since become involved in a church, the purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between previous levels of commitment and current levels of church involvement. As such, an investigation of the unchurched was beyond the scope of the research.

Research Population

The research population included former youth ministry participants from Southern Baptist megachurches in the US.

Research Sample(s) and Sampling Technique

The study employed a purposive sampling technique. The researcher contacted 112 Southern Baptist megachurches with identifiable youth ministry structures on the Annual Church

Profile (ACP) database. The Initial Survey of Youth Pastors (ISYP) instrument was used to select 12 churches that met the criteria for a dynamic youth ministry. The sample churches met several criteria to be included in the study. The first was having conservative theological beliefs. The second criterion was having a youth ministry infrastructure with separate middle school and high school ministries. The third criterion was having a dynamic youth ministry defined as having a youth pastor with a tenure of not less than five years and engaging in systematic and intentional discipleship and evangelism. Out of the surveys completed online, only 279 were usable.

Methodological Design

The methodological design of the study was falsification, an approach developed by Karl Popper. This approach is used to test and corroborate scientific theories. Hypotheses or scientific theories need to undergo rigorous empirical and logical testing before being accepted as supported. The testing is done to determine how far the new consequences of the theory withstand the demands of practice. According to Popper (1959), practical or technical experimentation can only yield positive or negative decisions. A theory is temporarily supported if the experiment generates a positive decision and is corroborated if it produces repeated positive decisions. Conversely, negative decisions falsify the theory, leading to rejection or revision.

Instrumentation

The instrumentation used was the Youth Ministry Retention Questionnaire (YMRQ), comprising 45 close-ended questions. The first 15 questions measured the level of youth ministry commitment by asking about intrinsic and extrinsic indicators. Intrinsic indicators include perceptions of spiritual growth, personal fulfillment, and relationships with leaders. In contrast, extrinsic indicators included church attendance, small group participation, and program involvement. Questions 16 to 30 asked about the participants' demographical information, such as age, employment, marital status, and education. Questions 31 to 45 assessed the participants' current church involvement levels using queries similar to those used in questions 1 to 15. The instrument's reliability score, which was determined using a simple Cronbach's Alpha statistic, was .89.

Limitations of Generalization

The data gathered in this study from the sample churches will not necessarily generalize to the following groups:

1. Southern Baptist churches that do not hold to conservative theological beliefs.

2. Churches of differing size stratum, including relatively smaller or medium-size churches.

3. Young adults who were actively involved in youth groups that did not possess a tenured youth pastor, did not engage in intentional and systematic evangelism and discipleship, does not employ an age-graded philosophy of ministry, or were comprised of demographic variables which differed from those demonstrated in this research study.

4. Young adults who graduated high school either before or after the years reported for this study.

5. Non-Southern Baptist adults who attended churches from the myriad of denominations across the United States.

Findings and Conclusions

For the first research question, the researcher got only one survey response in the Disengaged Prospect category. Statistical analysis was not performed to test for significance levels due to the low sample number. It was almost impossible to survey Disengaged Prospects because the churches did not maintain contact with them after graduating from the high school ministry.

For the second research question, the researcher found 19 Normative Attenders whose retention rate was 79%. However, 73.9% of the group was highly or moderately involved with the church currently. There was a statistically significant link between the commitment of Normative Attenders to the youth ministry and their involvement in a local church as young adults.

The findings for the third research question indicate an 80% retention rate for 75 Enthusiastic Followers. The level of current church involvement for most members of this group was moderate (44%) or high (34.7%). There was a statistically significant link between the Enthusiastic Follower's youth ministry commitment and the four levels of current involvement in church.

For the fourth research question, the Engaged Disciples were 181, and their retention rate was 92.8%. Only 7.2% of the total Enraged Disciples were not involved in the church currently. Therefore, the research conclusions support the argument that teenagers actively involved with the youth ministry continue with the same involvement with the church as young adults.

For the fifth research question, correlation tests revealed that the measures for independent (youth ministry commitment) and dependent variables (church involvement) were significantly associated with two demographic variables, including the highest level of education and type of high school commitment. The first correlation was positive, while the second was negative. Therefore, the researcher concluded that the demographic variables had little or no bearing on current church involvement or youth ministry commitment.

Lastly, there was a significant association between the dependent and independent variables for the sixth research question. There was a link between the degree of youth ministry commitment in high school and current church involvement. An overall retention rate of 88% was observed across youth ministry commitment levels for the sample churches. Overall, most young adults from conservative Southern Baptist churches continue to be involved in local churches after high school graduation. Therefore, the claim that most evangelical students leave the faith after graduating from high school is false. The churches with dynamic youth ministries have healthy environments that facilitate the development of skills necessary for retaining youth in the church from teenage to adulthood.