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One of my favorite Gary Larson (“The Far Side”) cartoons is one in which we’re given two pictures of the same incident. In frame number one, entitled “What we say to dogs,” a guy is yelling at his dog, “Okay, Ginger, I’ve had it! You stay out of the garbage! Understand Ginger? Stay out of the garbage or else!” And then in the second frame entitled “What they hear,” we see this bemused little pooch staring up at her master as he yells, “Blah, blah, Ginger, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Ginger, blah, blah, blah.…”
If you’ve been in youth ministry more than twenty minutes, you’ve probably had one of those nights at youth group: You’re in front of the group offering them some life-changing word of instruction and exhortation, and they’re looking at you as if you’re speaking in some secret language you’ve made up! That’s when you come face to face with one of the fundamental principles of communicating with teenagers: It’s not about what we say to our students, it’s about what our students hear. It all boils down to how the message is received and translated by those who hear it. We get to choose what we’re going to say, but we don’t always get to choose what they’re going to hear.
In the last several issues of Good News we’ve been discussing how to speak to teenagers in a way that goes beyond good intention and actually gains us good attention. Up until now, we’ve focused mainly on what part we (the speakers) play in that process—how who we are is often more important than what we say. But the communication equation will break down badly if we don’t recognize that who we are is no more important than who they are. Every time we speak to our students, one of the main questions they’re asking themselves is: “Does this person really understand me?”
Getting into their heads. What do we know about our audience? Almost every weekend I find myself in a conference center or a hotel ballroom standing up to speak at a youth event. Sometimes it’s a small crowd, sometimes it’s a medium crowd, and sometimes it’s a huge crowd (which usually means I’ve stumbled into the wrong ballroom). But in almost every case, it’s a crowd of students I’ve never met. And yet, I step onto that stage with some pretty solid assumptions that guide me as I speak.
The most important assumption is that all students are on a journey that is already in progress. Every time we speak to an audience, we’re walking into a movie that has already started. Whatever lines we say are being spoken into a plot that is already unfolding—dramas we don’t know about, dialogue of which we’re unaware, subplots that are many and complex. There aren’t any kids in any youth meeting who walk in as blank slates on which we write our messages. Hugh Mackay writes, “People are a pulsating bundle of attitudes, values, prejudices, experiences, feelings, thoughts, sensations, and aspirations. They are active, not passive, even when they are listening.”
Of course, even they aren’t fully aware of all the back stories and subplots in their own drama. There are needs they feel and needs they don’t feel (cf. the rich young man in Matthew 19:16-22, blind Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46-52, and the Samaritan woman in John 4). But the fundamental point is this: whatever students perceive their needs to be is the reality with which we have to begin. We gain permission to cross the communication bridge if, and only if, the students allow us access. In that sense, “the audience is always sovereign” (1 Corinthians 9:22).
Every message is an immediate and unspoken negotiation between speaker and audience. They agree to listen to us because we’ve come to an understanding. We’ve come because we believe we understand their needs; somehow, they’ve come to believe we’ll address those needs. And the more we know about their questions, their needs, and their story, the better our chance is of connecting felt needs to real needs, and, by God’s power, somehow speaking God’s story into their story.
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