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THE EFFECT OF CHURCH DOCTRINE ON THE BEHAVIORAL PATTERN OF NIGERIAN YOUTHS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1      Background of the study

Church Growth is a movement within evangelical Christianity which focuses on developing methods to grow churches based on business marketing strategies. It cannot be disputed that youths play a vital role in the life of a Church as they are the leaders of tomorrow and future of the church. The elderly stands out but youth’s contributions have been shinning and have always been flag bearers of every Church. For any tangible growth to take place in any Christian community, the youth must be significant in that process of growth. This is the more reason why wise nations, countries, groups and organization focus more on the development of youths so that the future of such investments would never be improvised or blind. It is therefore of vital importance in today’s Church to prepare assiduously youths for the tasks they would naturally face in the coming future. It is only when we have nourished our youths that they in-turn develop the Church. The questions are “what amount of attention do we give the youths and what level of devotion does the youths give to the church.

The youths of today have very high ideals, and to deny this would be grossly unfair. But we must admit that very often these ideals can sour, can be perverted and can be exploited. Often young people ultimately relinquish their ideals if they suspect that the situation is hopeless; if they conclude that nowhere can these ideals be fulfilled. Unfortunately, this is the usual progression of events today. “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity …” 1 Timothy 4:12. This is an admonition on the need to live a Holy and blameless life addressed to a young man, Timothy.  But, premarital sex, insolent speech, materialism, ruthlessness, theft and violence are some of the common vices generally found among Christian youths today.

Disappointments lead to abysmal falls, often to depths lower than those they condemned when their idealism was fresh. Where this does not happen, ideals are exploited by false prophets of good. The sectarians far from the fullness of truth are able to inspire youth to make such amazing sacrifices Yet at the same time, the Orthodox Church, possessing the fullness of Truth, has a real difficulty in keeping her youth(Abednego: 1989). It could be that in ignoring the high ideals and potential moral heroism of our youth we have failed to familiarize them with our examples of such heroism, displayed by our own young, even the very young, who loved Christ and His Church in past ages. The youths are important fabrics in the society. Can there be any society without youth? Obviously no, that is why we must see to it that our youths find their rightful places in the church. David and Pat Alexander emphasized that:

“Salvation is God’s gift, but it carries with it the obligation to live and behave, from that point on, as God wants. This means deliberately discarding the old (selfish way of life), shedding former habits, and letting the new life change our thinking and remold our pattern of behavior.

According to the Alexander’s view, supra, our salvation carries with it a responsibility for a new lifestyle; we are expected to change our thinking, remold our lifestyle, and to live a life of obedience to the word of God. Our Lord Jesus explained that:

Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who builds his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the wind blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beats against that house and it fell with a great crash (Matthew 7:24 – 27).

Church growth begins with church health and not the other way around. We see in nature that healthy things grow. This is by no means a new concept, but it’s still true. From this research, we will discover what a healthy church is like and how youth life style can boost church growth.

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