Dick Slikker: Does the church influence the missionary behaviour of youths?

Around 2,800 European Christian youths came together in south Germany for the Mission-Net conference over the New Year.

These young people have a clear interest in mission and therefore are probably not representative of the Christian youth in general but we can learn a lot about this group.

An important question is whether their church had any influence on their decision to celebrate New Year at a mission conference.

Around 400 of the delegates took the time to complete 27 questions measuring their interest, commitment knowledge in relation to mission.

The 27 questions were supplemented by two related questions looking at how active their church is in mission. The first being whether their church teaches mission and the second whether the church they attend encourages people to become missionaries.

By comparing all these questions together, we can gauge interest in mission in relation to the two types of churches. The comparison involves using a statistical test (Chi-square, p = 0.05) to see if any differences are 'real' differences and not coincidental. Keep reading