Youth Lifestyle and Church Growth
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives of the study
- To examine youth life style and church growth.
- To change the unhealthy culture of some church youth ministries.
- To cast a fresh vision for the church.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE LITRATURE
2.1 INTRODUCTION
This chapter gives an insight into various studies conducted by outstanding researchers, as well as explained terminologies with regards to youth life style and church growth.
The chapter also gives a resume of the history and present status of the problem delineated by a concise review of previous studies into closely related problems.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Theory of Planned Behavior
The Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991; Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980) is supported by an impressive body of empirical evidence (Albarrac´ın, Johnson, Fishbein, & Muellerleile, 2001; Armitage & Conner, 2001) and has proven particularly useful in guiding the development of effective health messages; this theory predicts that human behavior is guided by three kinds of considerations:
(a) Beliefs about the likely consequences of the behavior and the evaluations of these consequences (behavioral beliefs),
(b) Beliefs about the expectations of others and the motivation to comply with these expectations (normative beliefs) and
(c) Beliefs about factors expected to help or hinder the performance of the behavior and the perceived importance of these factors (control beliefs). All other personal, demographic, and environmentalfactors predominantly influence behavior through their effects on these three sets of beliefs.
Moreover, evidence suggests that successful interventions have their effects on behavior because of their impact on these theory-specified cognitions. That is, these cognitive changes mediate the effects of interventions on behavior (Albarrac´ınl et al., 2005; Hill, Abraham, & Wright, in press). How would we use this theory to develop a health education campaign persuading people to eat a healthier diet? Because eating a healthier diet is a global goal that can be reached by various behaviors, our first step could be to define the target behavior—the specific behavior we would like to change. This is an important point, where things often go wrong. If we succumb to the temptation of merely trying to raise people’s awareness of the dangers of unhealthy eating, we might convince them that an unhealthy diet is a bad thing, but have little impact on their behavior. There would be two reasons for such a failure. First, people are reluctant to feel vulnerable to health risks (Ditto & Lopez, 1992; Ditto, Munro, Apanovitch, Scepansky, & Lockhart, 2003). Thus, regardless of the junk food they eat, people will be convinced that their diet is healthy and that they are not at risk. Research on fear-arousing communications has demonstrated over and over again that health behavior change is driven by perceived vulnerability to a health risk and not by its perceived severity (Das, DeWit, & Stroebe, 2003; De Hoog et al., in press; De Hoog, Stroebe, & DeWit, 2005). People are quite willing to accept that there are all kinds of dangerous lifestyles, but unless we can convince them that they are at risk themselves, they are unlikely to take any action (De Hoog et al., 2005). Persuadingpeople that they are eating an unhealthy diet has proven a major stumbling block for campaigns in this area. Second, even if people accept that they are at risk, they require recommendations about specific behaviors. The specific behaviors must be perceived as protecting against the health risk (Janz & Becker, 1984; Maddux & Rogers, 1983). Otherwise, we will not achieve behavior change. At this point, the intervention becomes increasingly interdisciplinary.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter is concerned with the methodology used in achieving the objectives of the study. It covers research design, study area, population of the study, sample size, sampling techniques, instrument for data collection, sources of data collection, validity of research instrument, reliability of the instrument, administration of the instrument, method of data analysis and decision rule.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
This chapter is devoted to the presentation, analysis and interpretation of the data gathered in the course of this study. The data are based on the number of copies of the questionnaire completed and returned by the respondents. The data are presented in tables and the analysis is done using t-Test. The Pearson correlation methodwasre used in the validation of the hypothesis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
- To examine youth life style and church growth.
- To change the unhealthy culture of some church youth ministries.
- To cast a fresh vision for the church.
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
- There is a significant relationship between youth life style and church growth
- The culture and doctrine of churches has significant effect on the life style of youths
- Youth’s life style has a role to play in the membership and growth of churches
- The familiarization of the potential moral heroism of youth is one of the factors affecting church growth
- The moral teaching and nourishment given to youth help enhance church growth and its proliferation
CONCLUSION
The study concluded from the findings from the responses of the respondents that there is a significant relationship between youth life style and church growth since there is a statistically significantly (0.00) strong relationship (0.849) between the responses of the respondents that said that there is a significant relationship between youth life style and church growthand those that said that the culture and doctrine of churches has significant effect on the life style of youths
RECOMMEDATION
The study recommends that:
- Churches should always teach the doctrine of the church to the youth so as to improve their life style in accordance the desire and culture of the church
- The parents should also play a vital role in the education of youths on effect of negative life style on their well-being and the church
- The elderly ones in the church should serve as a role model to youths in the church as their good deeds will affect the youths in the church positively
- If the church is able to capture the heart of the youths towards putting up a good life style, then the growth and proliferation of the church is assured
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