These data supply both encouragement and insight with regard to one of the main purposes of Youthfest. The encouragement must come in the face of the national picture regarding sexual activity among teenagers.

“Data on high school students gathered in 1991 indicate that 76% of young men and 66% of young women in the United States had first intercourse by their senior year of high school.” Further, only 15% of men and 17% of women who came of age in the 1970s or 1980s were still virgins at the age of nineteen. (Laumann, E.O., Gagnon, J.H., Michael, R.T., and Michaels, S., 1994, The Social Organization of Sexuality, University of Chicago Press, p 324, 326.)

The effectiveness of the Youthfest event is mediated by the predictive effects of age on adolescent sexual activity. From the data collected it seems clear that the most effective age range to whom a call to abstinence may take preventative root are those young and even pre-adolescents. It is also apparent that the hard experiences of life have prepared a greater number of those who are in late adolescence to reconsider the emptiness of their own sexual behavior. From this age group comes the greatest potential for significant behavior change with regard to sexual activity.

Some evidence was found through phone interviews that certain persons were naïve about their commitment to sexual purity. It was as if it had never been driven home to them, or they weren't able to recall ever having made such a pledge. This may help to explain some of the failed pledges we observe from the data collection.

What does this study suggest for the focus and mission of Youthfest? I want to affirm its worthy purpose in calling students to deeper religious commitments and a life of sexual purity.

It is clear from understanding the profile of those who attend that the main part of this function will be to encourage those who are already inclined to follow Christ and abstain from sex to continue to do so. The attending audience is primarily religious. Insofar as Youthfest partners with other persons, churches and families in communicating this message, the result is that these students (Youthfest attendees) look tremendously different from their peers in society.

There is also evidence that Youthfest has been moderately effective in calling young persons out of destructive lifestyles into a new way of living built around faith in Christ and sexual abstinence. Given the reality that only 16.5% of men and 30% of women report being virgins at the time of their wedding (Laumann, et. al., p. 502.), I'm thankful for the encouragement and rescue efforts provided by Youthfest to its participants.

Special credit and thanks in this project go to Ben Hamm and Dave Ramseyer, Huntington College undergrads who worked on the foundation of this study in the spring of 1999. Additional thanks goes to John Smith, student research assistant for Link Institute, for his invaluable assistance in the design of the survey instrument.