Teenagers stand at the brink of adulthood. Going to church will then become more of a personal decision. Youth who are more likely to stay are those who have been in Sunday School classes, youth group, or other Bible study groups that seemed real.
Promote the following to make your class a place youth want to be:
1) relationship, not religion
2) spirituality, not rules
3) role models, not rhetoric
Youth long for something that is real to grab hold of and therefore tend to be drawn toward places that promote and produce the above Christian experience.
… in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. (Titus 2:10)
This article is included as a handout in the Reaching All Age Levels Resource with a brief explanation of each of the above points. The resource also includes similar articles for the other age groups. It provides you with a teacher training group session in which you gather teachers of all age groups for a PowerPoint presentation followed by breakout sessions to personalize it according to age levels.