Time With Teens

 

 

1) The best way to learn something is to teach it. I’ve always struggled with feeling inadequate as a teacher. I guess I tended to think that the teacher was up there imparting wisdom on the pupils. And I never felt adequate to hold that role. My best teaching times have been when I owned this and said, “I’m not sure what this is saying. Let’s see if we can figure it out (at the meeting) together.” Facilitating lessons turned me into a student as much as the students. And them the teachers. The single greatest thing I have joyfully come to realize is that youth have more to teach me than I do them.

 

2) God has little concern for a proper hierarchy. I have met some of the most godly men and women imaginable, heard some great and famous pastors and musicians. But the Holy Spirit has most floored me with incredible/inspiring/challenging truths from a junior high boy (who had just made a fart joke an hour earlier) or a high school girl (who had not, until that precise moment , volunteered an opinion in years of discussion). The Spirit lives, breathes, and speaks through us all. He does not care so much about whether you have been to seminary or work in church leadership of have written a book. If God has plans to use someone, look out! It is going to be mesmerizing.

 

3) Contemporary Traditions. I have seen a lot of battles between teen perspective and “the rest of the church,” especially regarding music style. I think it is inaccurate to say that teens just want something new and hip and cool and extravagant. They want something real. Most kids I know actually enjoy old hymns. They just want them to mean something. They have an aversion to it because they sense a going-through-the-motions, a routine lacking substance. They do not have a problem with traditions, they have a problem with what feels like apathy. They don’t want to sing old songs “just because you’re supposed to” in the same vein that the older generation doesn’t want to sing new songs to “pander to consumer-based faith.” There is a way to do both that is worshipful and unifying. If you do your traditions with inclusive meaning, they will adore those old hymns and readings. They dislike the us vs. them, our generation vs. yours nonsense as much as anyone. They live this everyday and are secretly disgusted by it. They want to be passionately included in tradition, and given the opportunity to establish some of their own.

 

4) More. Teens just want more. They sense the ridiculousness of the world around them. They want something big, something more. We squander youth by labeling them “naive” or “unprepared.” They have not yet settled for the life presented to them. And it can be inspiring. I have never seen a ceiling set too high (even when I intentionally tried to do so) that they didn’t reach and exceed. We expect too little from young people.

 

5) Just be there. My experience with youth has really freed me from needing to have all the answers or the right advice in a given situation. Nothing matters more than just being there. Sitting alongside each other in the moment. Not being alone. Sometimes, most of the time, sitting together in silence is the best solution to the toughest of problems. All it takes to do ministry well, is adopt the mantra, “We are in this together, and I am not going anywhere.”

 

6) God is messy. Whew! Jesus uses messy people. He even calls us into messy situations. He is not all about safety and sense (although we shouldn’t toss it all out the window). He swoops in and takes us somewhere unexpected, somewhere wild. He works in crumbled plans and blown expectations. He is not afraid of our inability to understand.

 

7) Be real. Jesus is bigger than our uncertainty. The biggest obstacle to Jesus’ Kingdom on earth is our willingness to take off our masks and be real with one another. The trouble is not that we are sinners, but the lengths to which we go to hide our sin from one another (and often, from ourselves). Jesus IS the Truth. He dwells in our honesty .

 

8) God is FUN! I could write for a very long time about this. God is NOT boring. He is not trying to hush our loud noises or shackle our wild dancing, He is trying to CALL us to those very things. Joy is not the enemy of Love, it is the perfect manifestation of it. When we mislabel our fleshly affections for real joy, we shame and abuse the Gospel. But when we do it right, there is nothing greater.

 

9) Christ overwhelms. Isn’t it weird how we weep uncontrollably, laugh hysterically, close our eyes, hunker to our knees (or face), or dance like a fool when we encounter the Presence of God. There is beauty in us breaking down, unable to contain the flow of the Spirit through our souls. I have had great conversations with teens about this. We tend to try to figure out the reasons for our meltdown, the message behind it, what does God want to teach or what is happening in my life. Sometimes, Christ just overwhelms us. Heart, mind, body, and soul. There is no clearer sign of worship.

 

 10) All unique. In my years in ministry, I’ve never seen two teens remotely like each other. God has us all on different paths, created all of us with an individual canvas, and uses/speaks to us uniquely. This is a recipe for disaster: a world in which no two people are alike, yet everyone is trying to “fit in.” Impossible. God made ans has a plan for each of us. And it is different. And He does not make mistakes. Or give up.

 

11) God is love. Probably the most memorable youth discussion I ever had was where we set out a list of the steps for falling in love (like, romantic-style, with a boy or girl). Then we went back through the list and talked about how each step is exactly the process we go through as we discover who Jesus is. Life is about falling in Love with Jesus. Love is Jesus. My one and only, my soul’s mate. Jesus is the love of my life.

 

Thanks teens (and retired teens) for all that God has done through you. Love and miss you!