Youth

The popularity of a college student group primarily focused on defending their faith in Jesus on university campuses throughout the U.S. and world has increased dramatically in the last year.

While operating in the mostly secular environment of college academia, including students and professors, a Christian apologetics alliance known as Ratio Christi (Latin for "reason of Christ" or the "rationality of Christ") is aggressively seeking and placing apologists on campuses to lead student chapters.

This movement comes at a time when Christian leaders such as prominent evangelical Chuck Colson say atheist – or nontheist – groups are on the rise on college campuses. Colson recently praised Ratio Christi in a column he wrote, expressing his joy at knowing the group is "working to reclaim the intellectual battleground on college campuses." more >>

The Condom Access Project (CAP) launched by California officials in several counties last week provides free condoms through the mail to students as young as 12, and the taxpayer-funded initiative has some wondering if the program might actually encourage teens to have sex.

CAP, supported by the STD Control Branch of the California Department of Public Health and the nonprofit California Family Health Council, aims to cut the high rates of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and infections among the state's teens. The free, mail-order condom program for teens living in Alameda, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Kern County, and certain areas in San Francisco, was launched the week of Feb. 14. 

Teens 12-19 can log onto TeenSource.com, fill out a short form requesting their city, zip code and date of birth and then select to have a free package of 10 condoms, lubricant and education literature mailed in a plain yellow envelope to their home. Condoms can be requested every 30 days. more >>

NASHVILLE – A youth-focused minister of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is stressing that loving God and students is more important than trying to constantly stay culturally relevant.

Chad Miller, ordained in 2000 as a non-denominational pastor, is currently serving as director of Dare to be a Daniel, a BGEA youth evangelism training project, and as an associate pastor for West Cabarrus Church in Concord, N.C. "Dare to be a Daniel" is attempting to raise a new generation of evangelists.

"You will wear yourself out being culturally relevant as you think you may want to be," Miller told The Christian Post on Saturday at the National Religious Broadcasters convention. "The problem is in trying to communicate with cultural relevance, it's possible to become biblically irrelevant. In our foundation, our beginning, middle and end, our faith was authored and finished by Jesus Christ; the word as flesh." more >>

When it comes to sex, unmarried Christians always want to know, "How far is too far?"

Christian author and speaker Dannah Gresh said this is the number one question she gets asked when she is doing speaking engagements.

Gresh spoke about some of the misconceptions young Christians have about sex with Christian psychologist Dr. Juli Slattery on Friday's Focus on the Family radio program, and told listeners there is really a different question Christians should be asking when it comes to the issue. more >>

The messages that girls receive from teen magazines are often discouraging and degrading to their sense of self-worth, because very few teens feel as thin, pretty or savvy as cover girl models appear to be. That is why Acquire the Fire is teaming up with Virtuous Teen magazine to help spread the word to teenage girls that God loves them just as they are.

Virtuous Teen is a combination of both faith and fashion, and will be made available, at no charge, to as many as 100,000 young people at over 20 upcoming ATF events this spring. ATF youth events are a part of Teen Mania Ministries, one of the nation's largest Christian youth organizations.

The magazine was founded by Carli Jean Miller in 2009, when she was just a 16-year-old high school student. She, too, had felt the impact of the media on her own self-image, telling The Christian Post on Wednesday that she once felt she had to be "perfect." more >>

One Christian organization is looking to reach what it believes to be a closed country – the public school.

With religion being pushed out of schools for nearly five decades now, only a minority of teenagers today are said to be Bible-believing Christians. Hoping to change those statistics, however, The Life Book Movement began, targeting Bible-illiterate high school students in the largely hard-to-reach public institutions.

"Public schools represent the most strategic mission field in the United States," Carl Blunt, president and CEO of The Life Book Movement, told The Christian Post. "The vast majority of teenagers pass through their doors." more >>