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Researchers from SAMHSA and RTI International discovered that an alarming number of teenagers experience major depression. In fact, 1 in every 12 teenagers (8.5%) aged 12 to 17 experienced a major depressive episode (MDE) within a one year period.

• 1 in 8 teen girls (12.7%) experienced a major depressive episode
• 1 in 21 teen boys (4.6%) experienced a major depressive episode

The likelihood of a teenager experiencing a MDE increases with age.

Among teens with a past year MDE, how many are impaired by the MDE in at least one of four role domains (i.e., home, school/work, family relationships, or social life)?

• 1 in 5 (21.0%) reported very severe impairment lasting an average 58.4 days
• 1 in 2 (48.3%) reported severe impairment lasting an average 25.8 days
• 1 in 4 (25.0%) reported moderate impairment lasting an average 14.1 days
• 1 in 19 (5.3%) reported mild impairment lasting an average 11.7 days
• 1 in 250 (0.4%) reported no impairment

For more details, read the full report. It is saddening to see so many teenagers being crippled by depression. Based on these statistics, there is a good chance someone in your youth group is experiencing a major depressive episode.

For Discussion:
- Aside from prayer, what are some effective ways to help teens prevent or cope with depression?

[via MSNBC]

In March, the Parents Television Council analyzed 14 hours of daytime music video programming on BET and MTV and discovered explicit content (e.g., sex, language, and violence) occurred once every 38 seconds (95.8 per hour). It is 7.5 times greater than the rate of explicit content on prime time television’s Family Hour (i.e., once every 4.8 minutes).

Explicit Content on BET and MTV

• 48% sex
  >> once every 90 seconds
• 37% explicit language
  >> once every 1.7 minutes
• 10% violence
  >> once every 6.3 minutes
• 9% drugs use/sales
• 3% other illegal activity

The full study also includes a similar December 2007 analysis. Most agree that exposure to such content has negative effects on youth. It certainly influences teen culture.

But what do you think? Particularly if you a youth pastor, how are music videos affecting the generation you are trying to reach? How do you think music videos have affected the MTV Generation’s transition into adulthood?

[via Baptist Press]

By its very nature, children’s ministry is challenging, but special needs ministry takes the challenge to a whole new level. Any children’s pastor familiar with teaching special needs children understands the importance of developing a unique approach and relationship with each child. It takes a great deal of effort, but it is well worth it when you can effectively connect and minister to a special needs child.

Autistic children are known for avoiding eye contact. And new research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has identified why.

Autistic children shy from eye contact because they perceive even the most familiar face as an uncomfortable threat.

That is good to know, especially if you minister to autistic children.  It was previously assumed autistic children struggled to process faces because of a malfunction in the brain’s fusiform region. This new research, however, shows that autistic children have “fundamentally normal” fusiforms but try to avoid eye contact because it over-arouses their amygdalas (an area linked to anxiety and mood disorders).

For Discussion:
- What advice do you have for ministering to special needs children?

[via ScienceDaily]

In July 2007, The Barna Group asked American adults to identify their most important relationships and most significant groups. Here is what they discovered:

Most Important Relationship

• 70% said family or specific family members
  >> 33% said their entire nuclear family
  >> 22% said their spouse
  >> 17% said their children
  >> 3% said their parents
• 19% said God, Jesus Christ, Allah, or the Trinity
• 2% said a specific friend

Most Significant Group

• 29% said their church
• 18% said the people they affiliate with at work
• 14% said loose associations of friends that regularly gather together
• 12% said a hobby club or social group
• 7% said interaction with people in the neighborhood

These results are not surprising. But it is interesting to see the correlation between the perceived importance and influence of each relationship. In Surprising Insights from the Unchurched, Thom Rainer asks the previously unchurched, “What person was the greatest influence in your coming to church?”

Greatest Influence in Coming to Church

• 42% said a family member
  >> 35% said their wife
  >> 18% said their child
  >> 16% said other
  >> 9% said parents
  >> 3% said siblings
  >> 2% said parents-in-law
  >> Husbands had a minimal influence. They ranked below wives, children, and parents.
• 25% said no one
• 17% said other
• 8% said coworker
• 6% said neighbor
• 2% said merchant

This research reiterates the importance of the church being active in the community. Your greatest church marketing tool is not billboards or a website but your congregation. And a congregation that pursues living and loving as Jesus did is sure to influence their families, coworkers, neighbors, and community.

CNN reports at least 1 in 4 teen girls ages 14 to 19 in America has a sexually transmitted disease.

Who has an STD?

• 50% of black teen girls
• 20% of white teen girls
• 20% of Mexican-American teen girls

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted the research. It is heartbreaking to realize that so many teen girls have made the moral mistake of sex before marriage and are suffering because of it.

According to The Barna Group and LifeWay Research, 1 in 2 teens in America attend church. But sadly some of these church-going teens are also included in the statistic of STD carriers. So it brings up one of the age old questions of youth ministry:

How can we get the message of abstinence to stick?

For Discussion:
- Are there any youth ministry methods or success stories that you think effectively get teens to practice abstinence?

New research from The Barna Group has identified five distinct segments in how Americans participate in faith communities. Here is a quick profile for each of the five:

1. Unattached - 23% of American adults
   This group has no personal interaction with a regularly-convened faith community, but they do use religious media. They do not attend conventional churches or organic faith communities, such as a house churches.
   >> 1 in 3 have never attended a church
   >> 59% consider themselves to be Christian
   >> 17% are born again Christians
   >> More likely to be single, male, and divorced at some point.
2. Intermittents (the under-churched) - 15% of American adults
   This group has participated in either a conventional church or an organic faith community within the past year but not within the past month.
   >> 2 in 3 have attended a church event within the past six months
3. Homebodies - 3% of American adults
   This group has attended a house church within the last month but not a conventional church.
4. Blenders - 3% of American adults
   This group has attended both a conventional church and a house church within the last month.
5. Conventionals - 56% of American adults
   This group has attended a conventional church event or service within the last month but not a house church.

For more insights , read The Barna Group’s original report.

The Pew Center on the States reports 1 in every 99.1 American adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the beginning of 2008 (full report). In other words, over 1% of the United States mission field lies in the hands of prison ministries.

With 1% of Americans behind bars, perhaps there needs to be a bigger emphasis on prison ministry. Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship Ministries and Catherine Rohr’s Prison Entrepreneurship Program are excellent examples of what is possible.

Whether or not your church feels called to have a prison ministry, you should be thinking about how this statistic affects your congregation now and in the future. It is likely there are members of your church who have friends and family in prison. They are probably affected by it, particularly in the case of a child with an imprisoned parent. With such a high rate of imprisoned Americans, how will your community’s culture be affected in the future as some of these inmates get the opportunity to reenter society? Some communities will be more affected than others.

According to the research:

• 1 in 54 men ages 18 or older are incarcerated
  >> 1 in 106 white men
  >> 1 in 36 Hispanic men
  >> 1 in 15 black men
• 1 in 265 women ages 35-39 are incarcerated
  >> 1 in 355 white women
  >> 1 in 297 Hispanic women
  >> 1 in 100 black women

For Discussion:
- What can a church do to minister to those affected by this trend?
- How can a church help reverse this trend?

[via The New York Times]

Yesterday, The Pew Forum published the findings from their U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. After interviewing over 35,000 Americans ages 18+, researchers discovered that a startling 28% of American adults have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion - or no religion at all. Key findings from the study include:

U.S. Religious Traditions

• Christian = 78.4%
  >> Protestant = 51.3%
  >> Catholic = 23.9%
  >> Mormon = 1.7%
  >> Jehovah’s Witness = 0.7%
• Other Religions = 4.7%
  >> Jewish = 1.7%
  >> Buddhist = 0.7%
  >> Muslim = 0.6%
  >> Hindu = 0.4%
  
• Unaffiliated = 16.1%
  >> Atheist = 1.6%
  >> Agnostic = 2.4%

Growth Rates
factors adults entering and leaving each group

• +700%= Agnostic
• +220% = Atheist
• +75.0% = Buddhist
• +33.3% = Muslim
• +16.7% = Jehovah’s Witness
• 0.0% = Hindu
• -4.8% = Protestant
• -5.6% = Mormon
• -10.5% = Jewish
• -23.9% = Catholic

Interesting Trends

• Men are significantly more likely than women to claim no religious affiliation. Nearly one-in-five men say they have no formal religious affiliation, compared with roughly 13% of women.
• Among people who are married, nearly four-in-ten (37%) are married to a spouse with a different religious affiliation. (This figure includes Protestants who are married to another Protestant from a different denominational family, such as a Baptist who is married to a Methodist.) Hindus and Mormons are the most likely to be married (78% and 71%, respectively) and to be married to someone of the same religion (90% and 83%, respectively).
• Jehovah’s Witnesses have the lowest retention rate of any religious tradition. Only 37% of all those who say they were raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses still identify themselves as Jehovah’s Witnesses. [Note: They still have an overall +16.7% growth rate because of new converts.]

It is sobering to see Protestantism dwindling at a rate of -4.8% while Agnostics, Atheists, Buddhists, and Muslims grow at incredibly strong rates. I cannot help but introspect what role I might play in the blame. Have I been maximizing my ministry potential? Is there anything more I can be doing to make a greater difference for God’s kingdom? These are questions that I believe we all must ask. When faced with such grim statistics, I believe it is our responsibility to reevaluate our lives, our actions, and our ministries.

It reminds me of the parable of the lost sheep (Matthew 18:12-14 Amplified):

What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray and gets lost, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountain and go in search of the one that is lost? And if it should be that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not get lost. Just so it is not the will of My Father Who is in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost and perish.

For Discussion:
- What do you think are the causes of America’s religion shift?
- What do you think is the church’s responsibility about it?