Teenagers and Heaven
by Lee Wilson

I'm speaking to teens now about my book on Heaven. It seems they are far more interested than I or the publisher first thought they'd be. In fact, they seem more interested than adults--though most adults are very interested themselves.

I spoke with Joe Beam at one church for a 3-part series on Heaven. The youth minister told me about 2 weeks before the series that he didn't plan to bring the youth group in because he thought the topic would be too deep. He said they mostly sang and prayed and he didn't want to get them out of that for a week. I couldn't help but think, "It'd be nice if they got a little bit of The Bible every now and then."

I called the minister and told him I really wanted the youth in there--at least for the first session. So the youth minister grudgingly brought the teens in for the first session. Afterwards, the teens practically mobbed me with questions. They were fascinated. But the youth minister was so out of touch with them that when I asked him how he thought it went he said, "It went...okay. We'll be in our usual contemporary worship on the other side of the building next week though."

Well, next week came and sure enough, Joe and I started the Heaven session with no teens. We knew that because they took up nearly an entire side of the church building when they sat in their usual area. About 3 or 4 minutes into the session, teens began walking in--5, 10, 15, 20 and then all of them.

Afterwards I asked one of the teens what happened. She told me that the youth minister had taken the teens to their "area of the building" and began their usual singing and what not, but then one person asked why they weren't in the auditorium listening to the study on Heaven. He said that he wanted them to get back to their usual Wednesday-night routine. So the girl asked, "What if we want to hear the Heaven class?" The youth minister seemed a little irritated, but said that if anyone happened to want to go hear that, they could. So...5, 10, 15, 20 and then all went to the auditorium to learn about Heaven.

I presented the same material by myself at another church just recently and this time it was only to the youth group. About 100 teens attended that class and the participation was exceptionally good. In fact, hands were raised the entire hour with questions and comments.

It turns out that teenagers looking ahead to an entire life are wanting to know what they are committing themselves to in terms of the gospel and where it's ultimately taking them. They are asking themselves the very real question of, "Do I want to do this?" And knowing about what Heaven will be like is a much larger part of that answer then, perhaps, the church has estimated. After all, isn't the whole salvation concept about getting yourself and as many others to Heaven as you possibly can?

So we need to present Heaven as the reward--and people who actually think want to know what about Heaven makes it a reward.

I want to present this message to teens and, to my surprise they are absolutely fascinated by the topic and what the Bible actually says about it.

If you're interested in having me conduct a Heaven class for the teenagers at your church (or you're whole church), call Family Dynamics Institute at 1-800-650-9995 and ask for my scheduling coordinator.

-Lee Wilson
© 2007 Lee Wilson. All rights reserved.

The Real Heaven: It's Not What You Think by Joe Beam and Lee Wilson "What will Heaven be like?" Have you ever wondered? Do you want to know what the Bible means when it talks about "the New Earth" and "the Kingdom of Heaven? Will we recognize our loved ones? Will we be in an eternal church service? What will we do? Click here to order