Teen Anxiety & Unify Project Set to Launch

Anxiety is widespread among teenagers. If you lined up 100 teenagers between the ages of 13 to 18, you could expect approximately every third teenager (31%) to experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their teen years. And almost every 10th teenager (8.5%) would experience anxiety that causes severe impairment.

In a piece on Baptist Press, Esther Smith encourages parents to have hope and lean in as they care for their teenagers struggling with anxiety.

Smith encourages parents to consider the questions they’re asking. Consider asking questions like:

What is anxiety like for you?

How is your anxiety triggered?

When is the first time you remember feeling anxious?

She says parents can often ask the same question in a different way to receive a helpful response and opportunity for conversation.

For instance, instead of asking them if they are praying or reading their Bible, consider asking:

How does your relationship with God help you when you are feeling anxious?

If you turn to God, but don’t seem to get help, how do you deal with that?

Smith encourages parents to be “… More invitational. More honest about the mysterious ways God does and doesn’t work through Scripture and prayer. Less focused on hints of legalism and more focused on the relationship we can experience with the Lord.”

Read the full piece at Baptist Press.
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The Unify Project, a Gospel-centered, ethnically diverse racial reconciliation ministry designed to mobilize Southern Baptist pastors and leaders in unifying their communities, is expected to launch Nov. 15 with widespread national participation, project co-chairman Ed Litton told Baptist Press.

“The response has been good and it’s across the board,” said Litton, immediate past Southern Baptist Convention president and senior pastor of Redemption Church in Mobile. “Obviously we had some concern. We wanted to see, are they going to come from certain regions over others. And it is everywhere Southern Baptists are.”

Fred Luter, senior pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans and the lone African American to have served as SBC president, joins Litton as co-chairman of the project that has renowned pastor Tony Evans as a chief collaborator.

Luter appreciates the widespread project participation.

The Unify Project will encourage pastors to assemble in their communities, to address racial strife and to act by serving their communities in tangible acts of love aimed at healing.

Read the full piece and sign up for our daily emails at Baptist Press.com.