Archive: Mission Impossible

Is Teenage Discipleship an Oxymoron?

By Duffy Robbins

Mention youth ministry among the average group of pastors or church members and watch how the room comes alive—all of the excitement and expectancy of an appointment for oral surgery.

Around the group, would-be Isaiah’s are thinking, “Lord, here am I; send somebody else!”

It’s understandable, of course. Our society’s response to teenagers over the last 50 years has taught us that these people are drug-crazed, sex-hungry rebels, differing from other lower primates only because they have opposing thumbs, people whose spiritual aptitude ranks barely above plant life.

What it really boils down to is that most of us think of “teenage disciple” as an oxymoron, one of those little phrases like “freezer burn,” “jumbo shrimp,” “congressional action,” “Plymouth Reliant,” “rap music,” or “United Methodists.” Some see “teenage disciple” as just that kind of contradiction in terms.

Yet, the mandate of our Lord is to go into all the world and “preach the good news to every living creature.” No matter how you exegete it, that’s broad enough to even include 14-year olds!

Somehow, we in the United Methodist Church have got to regain a vision for evangelizing and discipling teenagers. We must believe it is possible. We must embrace it as our mandate. We must strategize to make it a reality.

In the words of researcher George Barna:

“Traditionally, we pour the bulk of our funds for outreach and evangelism into ministry to adults. Existing research shows that most people accept Christ before they become adults. With the population aging and with fewer and fewer young adults to reach, we may wish to make a concerted effort at reaching adolescents during the coming decade. If we are striving to efficiently utilize limited resources, we may find that this represents our best approach to evangelistic outreach” (Frog in the Kettle, Regall).

The Process Doesn’t Always Look Like Progress

Perhaps one of the reasons that ministry with teenagers can be sometimes so disheartening is that we’re not completely clear about what we’re looking for. Anyone who has ever had the wonderful experience of parenthood will relate to the fact that it isn’t always so easy to envision the “finished product” of new life and maturity when it’s still early in the process.

I remember when my wife first contracted pregnancy, she didn’t choose to make this happy announcement by putting a daisy on my pillow, or booties in my lunch bag. This wondrous news came to me one morning when I was awakened by the sounds of my wife in the bathroom throwing up. As I stumbled into the bathroom she looked up long enough to proclaim with a smile, “I’m pregnant.” Now, I try to be spontaneous and open-minded, but in all honesty, that moment confronted me with mixed emotions. There was my wife with her head bowed over our toilet bowl with a big smile on her face. I’m asking “what’s wrong with this picture?”

What was wrong, of course, is that the process doesn’t always look like progress. Seeing your wife with her head bowed over a bathroom fixture struggling with morning sickness, it’s difficult to realize that someday that same head will be bowed in prayer at your child’s confirmation. It’s hard to witness this moment of nausea and see it as a moment of splendor. Part of me that morning standing in the bathroom wanted to say, “Oh, this is awful,” part of me wanted to say, “Wow, this is awesome.”

It’s those same conflicting emotions that greet us when we are involved in making teenage disciples because the process doesn’t always look like progress.

Too many of us in the church see the hassles, the pain, the grief and mess of youth ministry, without understanding that beneath ‘this process is a work of splendor. It may not look like it right now, but God is at work here. Even in the midst of this trauma, new life is stirring.

It’s probably significant that when Paul writes to the immature Christians in the church at Galatia, his exasperation takes on the tone of an expectant parent, “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19).

It would be wonderful if youth ministry were only about those great breakthrough moments of new birth and recommitment. But, if teenage discipleship is ever going to be a reality, there will be all those months and years of care and nurture in between that begin with “gestation” and pre-evangelism and continue all the way through the bumps and falls of learning to walk alone.

Kids and God: How Teenagers Grow Spiritually

For most pastors and churches, the only way to regain our vision for that long-term process of teenage discipleship is to learn to see beneath “the nausea and pain” of everyday youth ministry, and recognize that God is at work in this process of sometimes unapparent splendor. That can happen only if we take time to reflect on some of the ways that God brings about spiritual growth in the lives of teenagers.

PRINCIPLE #1: God Doesn’t Always Act When He’s “Supposed” To

If you were asked to reflect back to two or three key spiritual events that brought you to your current relationship with Christ, what would you say? Some might mention a worship service. Others might mention a camp. Quite often, people think back to some crisis experience. What I bet you will often observe is that very few of the key memorable events in your spiritual odyssey are the kinds of events on which we spend so much time and concern in ministry.

Seven years ago I was returning from a trip to Boston with a van load of my youth ministry students from Eastern College. We found ourselves in a blizzard that turned a rather easy six-hour drive into a nerve-wracking twelve hour ordeal of slips, slides and close calls. When we finally got to our exit off the Skuykill Expressway in Philadelphia we ran into a gridlock of backed up cars that trapped us in the van for another six hours! There we sat—twelve of us—praying, singing, freezing, in a van that had no bathrooms.

Finally, several days after our eventual return to campus, students were to write a reflection paper about which part of the course had the greatest impact on them spiritually. Naturally, I expected them to cite some profound insight from one of my lectures. But instead, it was unanimous: the most spiritually powerful part of the course was being trapped on the Skuykill Expressway in a snowstorm for six hours!

I couldn’t believe it. All those incredible lectures (I know good stuff when I hear it), all those wonderful interviews in Boston, and they felt that the most important spiritual benefit came from sitting in a van in a snowstorm. Well, needless to say, the next year we just drove up and parked on the highway for six hours; but, it also reminded me of an important fact about spiritual growth in the lives of young people: God doesn’t always act when he’s supposed to.

While most of the students I’ve worked with may attest to a particular speaker or sermon as having been significant in their Christian journey, there would be precious few who could actually recount what was the topic of the sermon or the text of the study. And yet, it is these kinds of matters that seem to constantly preoccupy us in pastoral ministry.

PRINCIPLE#2: The Bulging Tummy Principle

One of the frustrations of expectant fatherhood is watching the stomach of his pregnant wife for nine months and except for the huge bulge, there doesn’t appear to be any sign of progress. Every now and then, Mom reports a kick or a move and this sets off gawks of anticipation. It’s easy to think from one month to the next, “Well, nothing is going on in there today.” And then, all of a sudden … BIRTH HAPPENS!!

That waiting process is not unlike working with teenagers in ministry. Youth workers spend a lot of time just waiting around. Every now and then there’s a kick or a move, and you start to get hopeful. But most of the time discipling teenagers is about praying, loving and caring for kids while waiting for God to work. And often it looks like nothing is happening.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I left a junior high Sunday school class discouraged and thinking, “Boy, that was a great class today; I wish God could have been there.” And then, of course, months or years later, through some prayer or passing comment or vow of commitment, we get a chance to see that the cumulative effect of those years of faithful nurture had a deep spiritual impact in the life of a student.

One of the reasons that youth ministry has gotten such a bad rap in the church is that we want quick results. We want something that can be written on a report, hung on a wall, or stood up in front of the congregation. But teenage discipleship is not about quick results. It’s about being there and offering patient care and nurture while God does his work in the life of a teenager.

That’s why I like this sign that hangs in my office. It offers a variation on a familiar bumper-sticker theme: GRACE HAPPENS!

PRINCIPLE #3: Negatives With A Positive Effect

Have you ever taken the time to reflect on how many of the key events in your spiritual growth seemed to be negative and painful at the time? I have had countless conversations with adult youth workers who will recount three significant events in their own sojourn with Christ and will admit that at least one of those three events seemed counterproductive at the time.

At a recent youth leaders’ workshop in North Carolina, one youth worker shared how his own encounter with God came through a serious sports injury that forced him to re-evaluate his identity, his plans and his life goals. At the time, he remembered, “It seemed like a lousy break. Now, I can see it was the beginning of God’s restoring me to wholeness.”

That is very important for us to remember in youth ministry. We are so busy worrying about teenagers’ bad decisions and difficult times. Maybe, in John Wenham’s words, we need to be reminded that “God whispers in our pleasure, but shouts in our pain” (The Goodness of God, Inter-Varsity Press).

So many times I will ask my youth-ministry students here at Eastern College to share their story with me about how they came to discover Christ was real, and chose to serve him in some kind of vocational service. It’s uncanny how many times I hear them point back to what at the time could only have been described as a tragedy.

They will point back to a situation that must have seemed to their pastor or youth minister at the time as the final nail in their spiritual coffin. I can’t help but wonder if those pastors and youth ministers have since heard that the tragedy of those high school years was only the earliest labor pain of God bringing a whole new life into reality.

PRINCIPLE #4: Acting Their Age

Several years ago, Gordon MacDonald gave expression to the pessimism many feel about youth ministry when he stated in an article for Youthworker Journal that “Genuine commitment doesn’t happen during the teenage years …” It’s certainly a sentiment easy to understand. How many times has a parent said, “Hey, it’s great that he wants to go down to the city and clean up a vacant lot, but if this thing’s for real how come we can’t get him to clean up his room?”

In response to this skepticism, let’s begin with the obvious: teenagers are quite capable of making commitments—very serious commitments. The kid that sits in his room and practices his guitar for hours, the girl that practically starve herself to lose weight, the guy that runs three miles a day for football, the girl who gives up every night for four months rehearsing for the school musical—all of these teenagers have made very real commitments.

What confuses and discourages us, I think, is that we misunderstand what it means when a teenager makes a commitment to Christ.

I remember 22 years ago falling in love with this beautiful bright-eyed blonde. I knew immediately that she was THE ONE, but of course, I didn’t want to tell her that right away because it would seem shallow and insincere. So I waited and didn’t tell her l loved her until our second date!

To make a long story short: I married her. It has been over 22 years since that first night when I told her I loved her. And guess what? This morning, one more time, I told her again, “I love you.”

What is important to understand is this: when I told her this morning that I loved her, I really meant it. And, when I told her more than 22 years ago I loved her, I meant it. But, what I meant when I really meant it 22 years ago, is quite different from what I meant when I meant it this morning. Since that first time I made a commitment to her, much has changed. We have been married, and we’ve had two babies. I am more aware of what there is of me to give to her, and I am more aware of what there is of her for me to love. That doesn’t mean that my commitment to her at age 18 was insincere or phoney. It just means we’ve matured.

One reason that pastors and youth sponsors tend to be skeptical about teenage discipleship is that we evaluate teenage commitment by the standard of our commitment. When they say, “I’m committed,” they don’t mean what we mean when we say “I’m committed.” That doesn’t mean the teenager’s commitment is not real. It just means they need time to grow and mature.

A Real Possibility—A Real Challenge

For the United Methodist Church in general and for every local church in particular, the opportunity and possibility of teenage discipleship is very real. There is some excellent youth ministry being done right now in some of our UM congregations around the country. But far too many churches are letting this opportunity go unclaimed. Admittedly, the process does not always look like progress. And it’s hard to recruit volunteers and raise money on the basis of a few “kicks” every now and then.

But, I can hope that by understanding how teenagers grow spiritually, we can begin to reaffirm our belief in a God who wants to change kids’ lives. The potential is virtually unlimited, but as a church and as workers we must really believe: “Grace Happens!”

Duffy Robbins is chairman of the Youth Ministry Program at Eastern College in Sr. David’s, Pennsylvania. He has written two books that speak directly to these issues of programming to make teenage disciples, Youth Ministry That Works, Victor Books, Wheaton, IL and Ministry of Nurture: Helping Kids to Grow Spiritually, Zondervan/Youth Specialities, Grand Rapids, Ml. Duffy is a contributing editor of Good News magazine and will write a column entitled “The Next Generation.”

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