Southern Baptist Youth Groups

Who's Gonna Be There?: Southern Baptist Youth Groups Offer a Social Sanctuary

During adolescence, peer crowd affiliation is more important than ever. Teens split themselves into groups that developmental psychology identifies as peer crowds (Beši? 113). Peer crowds often function as a tactic for youths to join together with like-minded individuals to avoid getting lost in the swarm of teenage life. Identifying with others in their community helps these teens in the pursuit of finding themselves and who they want to become as an individual. One particular subculture is the southern Baptist youth group scene. These teens congregate with one another to share their religious values and help one another through the pressures of adolescence. Many researchers believe this group to be well-behaved teens whose resistance to alcohol, marijuana, and sexually permissive attitudes are a result of what they learn at their worship nights or from bible study (Goreham, Meidinger 84). However, their positive behaviors are influenced less by what their youth minister's teach them, and more as a result of immersing themselves with other moralistic youth. I define this peer crowd as a group of Christian individuals that are interested in growing in their faith and surrounding themselves with other teens in accord of their lifestyle to offer a positive social unity.

In any community, there are religious youth groups. Almost half of American youth participate in religious youth groups at some point during their teen years (Goreham 84). Nearly 90% of churches provide some form of congregational activities for their youth in order to provide positive peer relationships while offering adult support (Goreham 336). These youth groups, which typically meet once a week for worship sessions, provide a sense of shelter for adolescents who place great importance on their faith. Some Christian groups such as Young Life are school-based, meeting at someone's house once a week to discuss God in a laid-back atmosphere, while many are based on and meet at a church. From my observations, on a typical worship night—usually held on a Wednesday—teens will gather at their church, usually a little earlier than the designated time so that they can socialize with one another, then proceed to sing songs of praise followed by an adolescent-centered speech from the youth minister or leader. After the youth leader—usually different from the Sunday morning minister—has finished his lecture, the teens sing more songs of worship followed by more socialization. This atmosphere gives teens a place to come to mix with other teens who express the same morals as they do, a place where the pressures are lifted. Several positive health and social outcomes are related to youth religiosity, including quality of family and adult relationships, behavior and moral reasoning, community involvement, media consumption, sexual activity and emotional well-being (Bobkowski 56).

The positive results of attending youth groups are supported in numerous studies, what is not as concrete to researchers is what motivates these youth to attend. According to a Brian Kirk, a youth minister in St. Louis with an online blog, he believes that youth groups solely focus on introducing youth to faith, helping build the community, helping youth uncover their spiritual gifts, and to awaken youth to God's presence (Kirk 2010). What he fails to mention is that youth groups serve as a refuge from mainstream adolescence and provides youths with friendships that help them guide one another. If anyone has ever been to one of these worship nights they would have noticed the amount of socialization that goes on prior to, during, and after the service. One church I have seen has a cafe with popcorn, Icees, and other carnival-like snacks to aid these youth into feeling like they are at a social event. Many teens get very dressed up for these gatherings. One would think that faith and prayer would be the center of the night but instead many girls are wearing dresses with their hair done in curls. Some youth group attendees feel that this causes distraction and sends the idea that these girls are here to show themselves off and socialize, not exactly the foundation of the Wednesday night ritual. Although the sole foundation is about fostering youth's relationship with God and their faith, it is evident upon entering one of these church group gatherings that many of them are there to mingle with one another. When gathered with their youth group friends, teens help one another not to succumb to the pressures involved with being a teenager. These Christian groups support moralistic behaviors such as abstinence and sobriety, two values that are hard to find in some high school communities. These youths that strive to keep their behavior pure realize that it is necessary to surround themselves with others who share their beliefs.

Honing in on this idea, I met with Leanna Cross, a 15-year-old girl involved in the youth group at First Baptist Church Covington, and she told me why she chooses to be a part of a youth group. Leanna informed me that being in a youth group gives her "a sense of belonging and people to relate to" (Leanna). She also mentioned that they were her "support group." Upon hearing the word support, I asked her how they helped to support her, to which she told me that they support her by doing the things that she does and not doing the things that she does not do, for instance, sex and alcohol. She also said that the few friends she does have outside of youth group sometimes pressure her to drink when she is with them and that is why she always hangs around her youth group friends who do not divulge in the same activities. When I asked her if the youth group served a purpose in her faith, she quickly conveyed to me that it definitely helps her in her faith and journey towards God and 5:13, the name of their youth group (based on the bible verse John 5:13), has a great youth minister that helps her and her friends connect to God. Even when Leanna and her friends are not at 5:13 they still hang around each other.

Throughout our conversation, there seemed to be a dominant concept: Leanna's youth group disagrees with the illicit behavior that many adolescents partake in during high school, therefore Leanna and her friends stick together in order to stay strong and deflect immoral behaviors. However, within this subculture there are two conflicting types of people: the ones who are Christian, but look at worship nights as social opportunities, and the ones who go with one purpose only: to worship God and reflect on their faith. The ratio at youth group gatherings seems to be for every five social butterflies, there is one girl or boy who has no intention of socializing but rather is solely interested in the message and a place to worship God.

After observing