Family Worship Patterns and Their Correlation with Adolescent Behavior and Beliefs

We examine behaviors involved in family worship, how these behaviors cluster together into specific patterns of family worship, and how these patterns of family worship relate to the behaviors and beliefs of adolescents attending Seventh-day Adventist schools. Seven patterns of family worship were detected by cluster analysis of questionnaires completed by 7,658 Seventh-day Adventist youth, grades 6 through 12. Worship patterns that actively involved youth in reading, praying, and sharing their religious experience were rated as more meaningful and interesting and were associated with higher levels of Active Faith (a factor score). Youth in families with worship patterns that did not actively involve the youth were even lower on Active Faith than youth whose families had no worship. However, No Worship youth were highest on Materialism/Legalism and Alcohol/Drug Use. With one exception, worship patterns with high youth involvement were associated with lower Alcohol/Drug Use and lower Materialism/Legalism. Youth in the Shared Worship group, in which every family member participated in every phase of worship every day, were high on Active Faith but also relatively high on Materialism/Legalism, and Alcohol/Drug use suggesting a pattern of compulsive behavior.