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Research Problem
The author of this dissertation was prompted to research the issue on a large exodus of
youth leaving the ministry after graduating high school. This fundamental problem motivated the
author to research multiple issues and data samples presented by evangelicals.
Research Purpose Statement
According to Shiels (2008), “The purpose of this study was to examine the claim that 70
to 90 percent of actively involved youth ministry participants drop out of church after high
school” (p. 15).
Research Questions
The following questions below are a collection and analysis of the data for the current
research study:
1. To what degree, if any, are young adults who exhibited Level 1 commitment levels to
youth ministry during high school currently committed to a local church?
2. To what degree, if any, are young adults who exhibited Level 2 commitment levels to
youth ministry during high school currently involved with a local church?
3. To what degree, if any, are young adults who exhibited Level 3 commitment levels to
youth ministry during high school currently involved with a local church?
4. To what degree, if any, are young adults who exhibited Level 4 commitment levels to
youth ministry during high school currently involved with a local church?
5. To what degree, if any, are demographic variables significantly related to levels of
youth ministry commitment and current local church involvement?
6.What is the relationship between different levels of youth ministry commitment during
high school and level of current local church involvement? (Shields, 2008, pg. 15-16).
Delimitations of the Research
According to Shields (2008), he limits his research to specific parameters in order to
“reduce extraneous factors such as late adolescents’ development, juvenile
rebelliousness, and collegiate moratorium.” (p. 16). His reasoning as stated, “In order to
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gain a more comprehensive and longer-term understanding of post-youth ministry
retention, this study was delimited to young adults who graduated from high school prior
to the year 2008” (p. 16). Sampling young adults of different age segments provided the
researcher a snapshot of variations in the data as young adults progress through the
various seasons of life.
Shields also chose to sample young adults within a specific denomination,
delimitating to theological conservative Southern Baptists churches. This was to not
overly generalize to other denominations outside of the Southern Baptist denomination or
churches that hold to a divergent theological belief on the traditional orthodox doctrines.
This research further delimitates to Southern Baptist young adults who were committed
to their youth ministry during high school. While further research into this area may yield
rich data concerning those who were unchurched and have since become involved in a
church, the purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between
previous levels of commitment and current levels of church involvement (Shields, 2008,
16-17).
Research Population
According to the researched data, the population used was young adults from
various former youth ministries within the Southern Baptist convention who had a
conservative background (Shields, 2008, pg. 120).
Research Sample(s) and Sampling Technique
According to Table 3 from Shields sampling, he chose 12 churches in the
Southern Baptist Convention from 5 different states, where the majority of the churches
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were found in Texas. Sample churches had to meet four criteria to be considered for
inclusion (Shields, 2008, pg. 120-122).
Methodological Design
Shields (2008) notes, “The methodological design for this study entailed an
approach called “Falsification” developed by Karl Popper in the 1950s” (p. 115). Popper
(1959) proposed that there are only two types of empirical results from practical or
technical experimentation: positive decisions or negative decisions (p. 115).
Instrumentation
The instrumentation used here was called YMRQ, which stands for, Youth
Ministry Retention Questionnaire. The purpose of this was that it comprised of 45
structured (closed-ended) questions pertaining to two categorical measures, youth
ministry commitment and current church involvement. It also captured demographic data
like age, gender, type of high school attended, level of education, and current religious
affiliation. This instrumentation was best suited and used for the collection of data that
best met the specific purposes and stated objectives of the current research (Shields,
2008, p. 123-124).
Limitations of Generalization
This study in whole has been applied to youth leaving the church after graduation
by looking at a specific group of young adults from various age groups within a ten-year
span of graduating high school. According to Shields (2008), the data collected for this
research study falsifies the claim that a majority of evangelical young adults leave the
church after high school graduation. However, the specific data gathered in this study
from the sample churches will not necessarily generalize to the following groups:
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1. Southern Baptist churches that do not hold to conservative theological beliefs.
2. Churches of differing size stratum, including relatively smaller or medium-
size churches.
3. Young adults who were actively involved in youth groups that did not possess a
Tenured youth pastor, did not engage in intentional and systematic evangelism
and discipleship, does not employ an age-graded philosophy of ministry, or
were comprised of demographic variables which differed from those
demonstrated in this research study.
4. Young adults who graduated high school either before or after the years
reported for this study.
5. Finally, the data from this research will not necessarily generalize to non-
Southern Baptist adults who attended churches from the myriads of
denominations across the United States. (Shields, 2008, p. 123).
Findings and Conclusions
After looking at the data presented in this research, the author did well to faithfully
present as much data to this research. As the sample size collected was limited only to a handful
of Southern Baptist churches, majority stemming from the state of Texas, much more research
could have been done as this topic shows potential for open dialogue amongst other
denominations youth groups. His findings revealed that a high number of young adults were
more involved in the churches surveyed as opposed to the initial idea of a mass exodus of youth
leaving congregations after high school. Based upon the sample size collected, only 1.8%
reported low church involvement, 12% recorded no involvement, while a staggering 50.7%
recorded high involvement in the local congregations (Shields, 2008, pg. 138).
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Shields (2008) notes, “The data analysis for the entire set of youth ministry commitment
levels provided an overall retention rate of 88% for the sampled participants. This retention
statistic directly contradicts previous studies and discussions on the issue of retention, which had
estimated that churches are losing up to 90% of their graduates after high school” (p. 161).
Shields concludes that an overwhelming number of young adults from conservative SBC
churches involved in the study remained involved in a local church subsequent to high school
graduation (Shields, 2008, p. 173).
To that end, the findings from this research highlighted the need for those influencing the
field of youth ministry through their publications, blogs, and conferences to be more responsible
in their handling of data and statistics. More importantly, evangelical leaders must stop quoting
the dropout statistics as if it were a factual data point generalizable to all youth ministries
everywhere (Shields, 2008, pg. 175-176).
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Resources (Precedent Literature)
Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen. 2004. Emerging Adulthood. New York, NY: Oxford University
Press.
Barna, George. 1991. Today's teens. Glendale, CA: Barna Research Group.
Popper, Karl. 1959. The logic of scientific discovery. New York, NY: Basic Books
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