The world looks at pastors and biblical counselors and shakes their collective head at our naivete in encouraging those struggling with depression to read the Bible, pray, and gather in worship and community. We live in a pharmacological age, where we think the primary solution for mental health is found in labs. A good pastor and biblical counselor doesn’t deny that there may be a physiological component to mental health that may require medication, but insists that there is always a spiritual dimension to mental health. To be clear, there are certainly cases where medication is helpful, but it is always the case that we ought to press into spiritual answers remedies.

Are you encouraged or discouraged about teens? If you’re a teen, what is your perception of your peers? Are you hopeful? Or pessimistic? A massive global study on the state of teens worldwide was just released from One Hope.[i] In the report, we find reasons to be encouraged and causes for concern.

Spending time reflecting on what teens believe and do ought to help shape the way we pray for them and relate to them. I’ll process five sections of the report: Christian practice, struggles, social media, sexuality, and the meaning of life in teens’ lives and then draw some conclusions.

On Christian Practice:

• 51% of US teens claimed to be Christian, yet only 8% display the beliefs and habits of a committed Christian.

• 46% of Christian teens never read the Bible.

• 58% of Christian teens believe they don’t have a responsibility to share their faith.

I appreciate that One Hope didn’t just crank out their survey with a Christians vs. non-Christians binary, they dug into beliefs and practices. Much more important than whether one identifies as a Christian or not are their beliefs and practices. One Hope defined a committed Christian as one who:

• Believes that God exists and they can have a personal relationship with him.

• Believes Jesus is the Son of God.

• Believes that forgiveness of sins is only possible through faith in Jesus Christ.

• Believes the Bible is the Word of God.

• Prays at least weekly.

• Reads Scripture on their own at least weekly.

These are pretty strong criteria. If I had my druthers, I would have included weekly church attendance and a higher standard of praying and reading the Bible than once a week. But only 8% of teens qualified as committed Christians even by these fairly loose restrictions.

As parents, one of the most important things we can do is to have regular family devotion times that include prayer and reading the Bible. We are setting up our teens for failure if we put the responsibility on them to have quiet times on their own. While I would certainly want to encourage my teens to have their own quiet times, I think that creating familial rhythms is much more sustainable than putting the pressure on them to carve out healthy spiritual practices on their own.

On Struggles:

• 60% of teens and 30% of committed Christian teens struggle with depression.

• 35% of teens and 12% of committed Christian teens struggle with suicidal thoughts.

• 50% of teens and 36% of churchgoing Christian teens struggle with pornography.

• 48% of 13–15-year-olds have viewed porn in the past 3 months.

• 51% of 18–19-year-olds have viewed porn in the past 3 months.

• Unmarried Christian teens are more likely than non-Christian teens to be sexually active.

This should sober us. Many older people critique teens and young adults as entitled or lazy without first empathizing with them. It is staggering that 60% of teens struggle with depression and a jaw-dropping 35% of teens struggle with suicidal thoughts. There are a lot of ways that the world is easier today than it was 50 years ago, but mental health is not one of them.

Read More