Choosing Church: What Makes a Difference for Teens [Paperback]

Carol E. Lytch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 31, 2003

Widely known theological educator and sociologist Carol Lytch presents this well-researched study of what attracts teenagers to the church and what keeps them there. The cogent research includes interviews of a number of teenagers and their parents from mainline Protestant, evangelical, and Roman Catholic congregations. Groundbreaking and fascinating, Choosing Church ultimately serves as a highly useful description of the most effective ways that congregations and parents can foster faith in teenagers that will help them value the church as a place to obtain identity, belonging, and growth.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Carol E. Lytch is Assistant Executive Director of the Association of Theological Schools in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She coordinated the Lilly Endowment programs for Strengthening Congregational Leadership through the Fund for Theological Education from 1999 to 2006 and has served as adjunct faculty at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. She is an ordained minister in The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press; 1 edition (December 31, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0664227171
• ISBN-13: 978-0664227173
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,186,893 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very fine book!, January 26, 2004

By 

Douglas J. Brouwer (Wheaton, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Choosing Church: What Makes a Difference for Teens (Paperback)

Carol Lytch is a terrific scholar and writer, with just the right sensibilities to write a book like this. She examines strong youth groups in Catholic, mainline Protestant, and evangelical Protestant churches, and she discovers several common themes. Conventional wisdom says that young, handsome, and male leaders are the key to vital youth groups. Lytch finds that this isn't so. Others say that contemporary worship is the key. Again, Lytch shows that this isn't so. What are the reasons that kids choose church? A sense of meaning, a sense of belonging, and a feeling of competence are the reasons. Parents play a key role too. Parents of teenagers as well as pastors will find a great deal of helpful information in this book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well-researched, but predictable results., September 29, 2007

By 

M. Cleaver "youth minister, amateur theologian" (Arlington, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Choosing Church: What Makes a Difference for Teens (Paperback)

In Choosing Church Carol Lytch, a Presbyterian minister, sociologist, and theological educator, seeks to discover what factors keep students attending church through their senior year of high school. In a time when other research shows the steep decline in church attendance among teens as they age such a project is all the more appropriate.

Lytch conducted her research as she pursued her Ph.D., and she later turned it into a book accessible to parents and church leaders. Lytch chose to conduct her research qualitatively, immersing herself in the life of three congregations (one Catholic, one mainline, and one evangelical) with exceptional records of high school seniors' attendance and participation. Her data is comprised primarily of observations made while participating with the various churches and interviewing teens and parents face-to-face. As can be expected in Ph.D. research, the style and language can be dense and technical at times.

Lytch approaches her research as a sociologist, not necessarily a pastor or theologian. She attempts to find correlations between teen participation in congregations and various factors in the teens, their families, and their congregations. She leaves it up to those who work with teens within churches to take her findings and decide what the data may mean for their particular congregations.

For Lytch, one of the significant factors in congregations in America today is the rise of "personal autonomy, with its guiding motto, `I choose to go to church' rather than `I must go to church'" (5). Lytch finds that while this prevalence of personal autonomy might be a barrier to teen church participation, churches and families that do their best to take advantage of this personal autonomy produce teens who believe that their faith is their personal decision and not simply the passing on of religious tradition.

Multiple conclusions are drawn from the mass of data collected, but the number one predictor of a teen's intention to continue attending church past high school is the "maintenance of a shared family understanding: `In our family, we attend church'"(200). This is yet another study that shows that parents are still the most important factor in the Christian formation of young people. Another statement which Lytch ties to parenting has telling implications for youth ministry: "A church may have a vital youth program, and/or the teen may attend an effective religious school, but those involvements appear to be secondary in importance to the teen's engagement in the church's weekly gathering for worship" (188).

In a well-researched and relatively comprehensive study, Carol Lytch offers youth workers, especially those willing to wade through some dense and technical language, valuable insights into discipling young people through, and even past, high school. That being said, many of the conclusions are not necessarily new to those who are in youth ministry and up on most of the recent youth ministry theory and studies.