We need to take time to listen to our teenagers in order to know what they battle with and how best to help them and pray for them. For this article I simply sent a series of questions out to Christian teenagers and below are a few responses to each of the questions.

1. What do you find difficult about being a Christian teenager living in a secular world?

• Witnessing. It is very easy to hide away and spend too little time with non-Christians for my life to have an impression on them. I can see all the souls that could be won for Jesus and not having the courage to talk to them about him.
• Peer pressure. There are moments where you find yourself under peer-pressure or feel that you are the ‘odd-one-out’ when other teenagers are talking about parties and drinking and other worldly things that we have no involvement in.
• Feeling alone in the work of serving Christ and feeling very different to and not understood by everyone else. 
• Being misunderstood. The most difficult thing I find about living in such a secular society is that few people have the same values and sense of conscience, and consequently rarely agree with me, even some Christians! It can make me feel isolated, especially when it seems the only Christians I know around me are older and don't really face the same situations!

2. What things encourage you to live the Christian life?

• Knowing Christ. The most encouraging thing has to be the hope found in Jesus of eternal life with him - sometimes this can be hard to remember when all else seems to be going wrong, but it really is the only source of lasting joy!
• Meeting other Christians my age and knowing that they are in a similar situation as me makes me feel less alone.
• Knowing that God is with us all the time and whatever is happening is according to his plan.
• Reading that Jesus went through it too. 
• Knowing that my parents are there for me.
• Hearing God's word on Sundays, meeting with other Christians my age or those who are in similar situations as me for Bible studies, beach mission or just social events. 

3. Can you suggest what older Christians can do to help you? 

• I have found the family atmosphere in my church helpful and encouraging - to be mentored by someone older and spiritually more mature is such a blessing!
• Someone asking us how it’s going or being able to pray for us or just encouraging us!
• I have found it encouraging when older Christians have shared their experiences with you and are able to relate to your situation and that they understand what it is like and how difficult it must be.
• Relating experiences that they went through when they were our age and giving advice on what to do and what helped them. Also offering prayer and encouragement.

4. Any things older Christians do that are not helpful, or that you find discouraging, or areas where you think older Christians do not understand what you face?

• Sometimes I can feel slightly overwhelmed by very eloquent and seemingly 'perfect' older Christians - although it is helpful to have a role model, it is encouraging to share in both the joys and struggles felt by the older generation and to know that we are all part of one body.
• Sometimes teenagers can feel useless because they are younger than other Christians in their church or they feel there is prejudice against them because bad impressions are created about all teenagers. I find it difficult when older Christians do not understand how hard work school can be and the pressures that Christian teenagers face there.

 5. What do you think are the greatest dangers facing teenage Christians?

• Spending too little time praying and reading the Bible. This makes you poorly equipped and more vulnerable to fall into sin and backsliding from God.
• A great danger facing Christian teenagers is definitely the influence of bad and unbiblical teaching; for example being encouraged to compromise the authority of the Bible under the teaching of 'science', which then can lead into a total loss of faith.
• Peer pressure when it comes to drinking, sex, etc.  Being the only Christian in class and feeling overwhelmed and helpless, so that you don't feel confident enough to speak out about religion and question others or be strong enough to answer questions.

6. What are the greatest pressures on you at school/university?

• The expectation that I will behave in the same way as others (eg drinking) makes it hard to stand up for God without them thinking you are a 'boring' person.
• Probably to be ‘going out’ with anyone and everyone.
• I would say the temptation to slip easily into a worldly way of living, things as simple as gossiping at school and drinking at parties, just because it seems like everybody else is doing it and it is natural to want to fit in!
• Sharing my faith with classmates and trying to get a balance with college work and ‘godly’ work.

7. What do your non-Christian friends think about you being a Christian and about your Christian beliefs?

• They are prepared to let me believe what I want but they also want me to accept that they can believe what they want.
• Most of my friends are accepting and tolerant, though often a little puzzled - they can't understand why I would want to ‘give up’ my whole Sunday for church for example, which can be quite difficult to deal with alone.
• Some of them accept it, others make a show of the fact that they don’t believe it and others ask loads of questions (which is great!). 
• They respect me for being a Christian, but have no interest in my beliefs, thinking them strange, and they don't understand why I cannot do, and must do, certain things.

8. How relevant do you find the preaching in your church to you as teenagers? 

There are often many relevant points for teenagers in Sunday sermons. It is a continuous challenge to put them into practice in the other six days of the week. It may be helpful if some of these were made more explicit using illustrations and examples to gives us direct ideas for living our lives and witnessing to others.

• Although the sermons at my church are not specifically intended for teenagers, I believe all biblically-based teaching is relevant to people of any age.
• I find a lot of it relevant to me, but sometimes the language is hard to understand, and it cannot always be applied to me as a teenager.

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