The young children and teens in your family and church community need help from you to figure out how to grow spiritually.
Cultivating spiritual habits will help them grow spiritually over time. Reading, praying, and going to church are important spiritual habits, but they are not the only spiritual habits that should matter.
So here are three steps that will go a long way to help your preteen/teen grow in the ways of God:
1. Spending time with God
Spending time with God is vital to growing spiritually and is a very important one. Because if teens are going to follow God, they’ve got to start spending time with God on their own.
They will have to read the Bible on their own, speak to God on their own and connect with Him through worship on their own.
Give them a Bible in an easy-to-read version, and help them memorize Scripture.
Teach them to pray, it can seem strange to someone who hasn’t spoken to God much before. Children studying in middle school and high school, need our help in showing them how to have conversations with God on their own.
So you can pray out loud with them and give them opportunities to talk to God loudly. Give them some good Christian books on prayer that will really help them.
2. Spend time with Spiritual friends
When it comes to hanging out with friends it doesn’t mean forging meaningful friendships with non-Christians. We must give priority to Christlike relationships in our life.
But if we find ourselves mixing with non-Christians we must behave like Christ who discipled them in real life, in their messy, and challenging, and imperfect situations.
Encourage your young people to engage in their communities and places outside the church like their schools, their neighborhoods, and their sports teams.
3. Share your testimony
When we share our testimonies and talk about what God has done throughout our lives, it helps young people understand, and take ownership of their own faith.
Let your young people lead small groups to develop healthy communities, where they can have healthy conversations about their faith with other teens.
If you want teens to be comfortable having conversations about their faith, it is necessary to help them have healthy conversations about their doubts, fears, and questions.