If we’re going to be serious about ministry to youth and young adults, then we have to face up to the fact that the biggest thing standing in the way of that ministry is our own insecurities. Ministering to young people instantly throws us back to that stage in our lives and we long to be cool again, aligning ourselves with the “cool” kids, and shunning the “un-cool” ones. This is especially hazardous for those of us who didn’t fit into the “cool” category in junior high, high school or college ourselves, and see the acceptance of the cool kids as finally having “made it.”
Of course, since we’re now adults, none of this should actually matter, and putting it out on paper like that sounds rather silly, but I’ll confess it’s happened to me, it’s something I see in me that I constantly have to override (and it does get easier to override as you do it!).
Teenagers by nature want to question everything. A soon to be ninth grader that I was talking to the other day said something about herself, qualifying it with “since I’m at the age where I’m trying to like, figure out who I am and stuff.” She seemed very self-aware for a 13-year-old considering that’s exactly the definition of adolescence but I don’t think most teenagers, especially those on the early end of adolescence, usually see it quit so clearly.
But this constant questioning of everything, including what we as adults believe and why, tends to make us feel defensive, especially if we don’t have a good answer for one of their questions. It makes us want to pull rank, as it were, tell teens to do things “just because I said so,” or knock aside questions that we don’t have answers to.
All of that is detrimental to ministering, and for that matter parenting, teaching, being anywhere near, teen and young adults. And for the same reasons, it makes us as adults actually scared of teenagers in particular, if not young adults as well.
So how do we get rid of these insecurities?
Insecurities fall into the category of things I like to call little demons. They’re usually quite small, but they have powerful cumulative effects, especially when left alone in the dark too long. Sort of like mold, really. A bit of air and light will do wonders for them, as these noisome little demons really can’t stand light, it tends to make them shrivel up and die.
That mixed metaphor is to say that we have to acknowledge our insecurities for what they are, and consciously choose to not act out of them to the best of our ability. This is they only way to make them shrivel and start to die. And, unfortunately, it’s not an instant thing. It seems to be one of those life—long wrestling matches, but one that gets better as we stay with it consistently.
Here’s another way that insecurities get us in trouble in ministry, but especially in youth ministry. As we build relationships with the kids, provided we get around those initial insecurities that make us scared of interaction and such, we find that the affirmation and love we receive from teenagers and even young adults, but especially teens in this case, is unparallel. For all their often justified suspicions of adults, teenagers once they’ve been won over have the capacity for great admiration, love, and dare I say, even a bit of hero worship.
This is actually more dangerous for our own souls then having to get over the fact that they want to question everything we say. Far more dangerous. If we give into this one, we end up doing youth ministry not for the teens, but for ourselves. And that means that we’re using the teens for our own end, something that should never occur in ministry.
Let me say that again, because this is important too. We can’t do ministry because of the results we hope to get either for ourselves or for our church. All of that is a by-product, a function of God working in situations and blessing us and our community for our faithfulness. The ministry itself has to be done for the sole purpose of the people being ministered to. It will be beneficial to both us as the ministers and to the entire community of the church, but again, that’s God working and responding to our faithfulness in answering his call and being obedient to looking after all of his kids, not just the ones that have learned to sit still and not whisper in church (which, now that I think of it, would exclude me some Sundays).
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