This research project describes a survey conducted to consider their experiences of young people of the Canadian Reformed church community regarding the instruction in the Christian faith by parents, teachers and ministers; the modeling in the Christian faith by parents, teachers and ministers; the development, the meaning and the importance of their faith; and their joys and frustrations in the church. It wants to present the findings of the study to the Canadian Reformed community in the Fraser Valley in order to share the results and to get feedback, and in order to identify and celebrate strengths and consider recommendations for improvements helpful to parents, teachers and office bearers.
The survey report attempts to draw an overall picture of the world in which the young people live and give a profile of their teenage community. It offers the young people’s opinions about things that concern them. It is intended as a tool for parents, office bearers and teachers to help them in their communication with the young people in their trust.
The research project was conducted among 350 young people ages 12 - 18. All those interviewed are students at a Canadian Reformed High School, most of them are members of the Canadian Reformed church. The survey combines elements of qualitative and the quantitative research in order to get a more complete insight in the thoughts and feelings of the young people.
In order to enable the community to draw its own conclusions and initiate its own responses, the researchers did not make any recommendations based on their findings. They summarized their own conclusions regarding the message that the young people are sending. They recognize reasons for gratitude and at the same time identify areas of concern. Young people feel that their parent’s faith often lacks credibility, that the community’s regiliuos practices can not be validated in today’s world. They express a strong desire for a more intense and sincere devotional life. They want to feel that they belong in their community. They are strongly agitated by rules that are maintained legalistically without consideration for the situation of individual people. Liturgically they can not validate a number of important aspects of worship. Personally they struggle much with the awareness of their own sin and the guilt of insufficient gratitude to God.
The researchers’ desire to present a substantive, credible report led them use elements of qualitative as well as quantitative research approaches. While this provided a great amount of data, it also made the weakness of the work more obvious. The study was done without academic supervision and controls and as such it leaves some ground for criticism based on procedure.
This report has done much to provide a general picture of the situation these young people find themselves in. The reluctance of the researchers to make recommendations may have been the appropriate thing to do for their community, it at the same time seems to leave the study rather incomplete. Based on the work done, they should be able to provide clear suggestions that can lead the way for an improvement of the young people’s situation.