This study has been conducted with selected youth in three districts of the Church of the Nazarene in the Philippines, identified as Districts A, B, and C. Six churches from each district were selected to participate in the study. The purpose of the study was to discover how well 15-18 year old youth in selected Nazarene Churches from three districts of the Church of the Nazarene in the Philippines namely; District A, B, and C, understand the Articles of Faith of the Church of the Nazarene, whether or not they believe them, and how those beliefs are manifested in their practices.
Data was gathered using a fifty item - questionnaire completed by the youth in the selected churches. The questionnaire provided biographical information on the respondents and measured the level of their agreement with the Articles of Faith.
Focus Group Discussions (FGD), one in each of the three districts, provided qualitative data. Each Focus group had one youth from each of the six selected churches in that District Three (3) scenarios were employed to stimulate a structured conversation with the Focus Group participants. The scenarios were prepared using the Tagalog dialect, spoken by most of the participants. Video and audio recordings were made of the three Focus Group discussions, and transcribed for analyses.
The findings of the study show a range of abilities, on the part of the 15-18 year-old youth, to articulate what they know about the Articles of Faith of the Church of the Nazarene. A few struggled to give a response to the Scenario questions, others shared an insight or two, and still others were able to more fully respond to the questions, giving indication of their ability to appropriately bring together their grasp of insights from several Articles of Faith. The quantitative data indicated that the three Articles with the lowest agreement scores were, Article XIII The Lord’s Supper, with a score in the Disagree Range, Article I The Trinity, and Article III The Holy Spirit, each with a score in the No Opinion Range. These findings suggest that the 15-18 year-old youth throughout the Church of the Nazarene in the Philippines could benefit from an examination of how the Articles of Religion are being presented to the youth in their local churches.
This study recommends that Youth Leaders and Pastors from the Church of the Nazarene in the Philippines gather together to review the findings of this research and discuss the implications of the study for their ministries with youth in the Church of the Nazarene in the Philippines.
