Explores the effects of discipleship on young people's relationship with Jesus in church schools, suggesting meaningful connections can be fostered before adulthood.
If pastors, teachers, and parents can learn to live and teach the gospel in front of and with our young people on a daily basis during their pre-teen and teenage years, our young people will be much more likely to find and embrace a meaningful personal relationship with Jesus before graduating high school (Barna Group 2023; Williams 2017, 22-24). It is imperative that we do all we can to help our young people develop their own personal relationship with Jesus before they enter the collegiate/young adult developmental stage where they frequently leave home—which often also means leaving their home church as well as church school (Thayer 2017, 33, 36). For the Seventh-day Adventist church, one of the most promising places to engage in this type of discipleship is during the week, on campus, at our church schools.
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Scott R. Ward (2024) studied this question.
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