Archive for February, 2010

What do you want to be when you grow up? It’s a question adults often ask children. My nephew consistently says he wants to be a Power Ranger. So, my brother is putting money away for Power Ranger School. Not sure what that costs. Increasingly, the same question is being asked of college students . . . and 20-somethings . . . and 40 somethings. A lot of us seem to wander through our lives with no sense of what we want to be. Robert J. Havighurst said that one of the developmental tasks of adolescence is selecting and preparing for an occupation. How do we help teenagers do that?

Our culture has changed and very few of us will hold one job all of our lives. Some teenagers are choosing not to go to college because they believe any vocation they prepared for would just be a stop in life for a few years before they went on to the next vocation. Many companies hire people for jobs that never existed before and then train them to do the job once they start. Choosing an occupation may be a more difficult task for your students than simply deciding they want to be doctors or firemen or preachers.

When I was graduating from high school, my pastor told me something I’ve come to believe was very wise. “Paul, God’s call is dynamic,” he said. “God may lead you on many paths. Your calling is not to a job, but to obedience to Christ.” I have found that to be true. After spending 8 years preparing for ministry in college and seminary, I was a local church youth minister for 10 years. I have served as a consultant in youth discipleship, a youth camp coordinator, an editor of youth ministry resources, and now teach youth ministry and educational leadership at a seminary. I could never have anticipated the path my life would take, but I believe God has led me to each shift in my vocation.

We don’t help teenagers develop their occupational focus by focusing on occupations. As odd as it sounds, I am not that concerned about whether a teenager wants to be a nurse, a foreign correspondent, or an entrepreneur. My concern is that they are passionately pursuing what they believe God has called them to do and be. How do we help youth choose and prepare for an occupation?

1. Help them to see that their highest calling is following God.

2. Join them in praying for what direction God is calling them to follow.

3. Lead them to identify their God-given gifts and talents. Help them explore what they are truly passionate about.

4. Encourage them to focus on the legacy they will leave with their lives, not the stuff they will accumulate.

5. Talk to them about choices they make now that will lead them toward the occupation (or many occupations) that seem to be God’s current direction for them. Encourage them to explore colleges that will equip them for the future, work experience that will help them to learn needed skills, and networks that will help them to find the right kind of positions.

6. Affirm the gifts you see in them. Often teenagers are hesitant to pursue big dreams for fear of failure. Help them to trust God to lead them into amazing ventures.

Youth ministry is all about helping teenagers to develop a passionate, life-long relationship with Christ. Being willing to walk with them through some of the developmental tasks can be great ways to guide them toward that goal.

by Roger Glidewell

As a young youth pastor I was not too eager to take my youth group to camp. Why? Because as a youth I had been to youth camp. Sadly, my first camp experience was more about short-sheeting the counselor’s bed, sneaking out at night, and dozing through dry sermons than it was about spiritual growth. I came home from that camp little better off spiritually than when I left home. Why would I want my youth group to be involved in that? Then a fellow youth minister invited our church to join them one summer for a multi-church youth camp.

Wow, was I ever in for a surprise; my youth encountered Christ that week in a way that I had never experienced before. Now, decades and thousands of campers later, I am a firm believer in the value of those moments with God that happen in special ways at camp. In fact, Global Youth Ministry utilizes youth camps in the U.S. and around the world as a vital link in reaching youth and raising young leaders for local churches. We have learned that when camps are “pre-prayered” well, the result will be a more focused, God-honoring youth group.

If you are seeking a meaningful camp program for your youth, here are some questions to ask about the camp that will help you determine if the investment in time, money, and energy will be productive for your youth over the long term.

WHAT PRINCIPLES GUIDE THE CAMP?

Be sure the camp is biblically centered. Your youth can get activities and entertainment anywhere, but they are unlikely to get God’s Word anywhere else but at church activities. People joke about how bad “camp food” is, but sometimes a camp’s spiritual fare is even worse. Don’t settle for a camp where the messages consist of a video clip and a verse! Many Christian youth already suffer from “spiritual malnutrition.” Be sure your camp is “beefed up” with an appetizing diet of spiritual food where the messages, drama, music, recreation, and everything else point to the truth of God’s Word. Don’t settle for topical Bible studies if you can find a camp where an expository teaching approach is offered.

WHO ARE THE PEOPLE WHO LEAD THE CAMP?

Be sure the camp leaders are not only godly guides but that they are accessible to your youth, as well. Don’t settle for camp speakers or musicians that breeze in, blow up and then buzz out, never spending time with your youth except from a stage. Look for a camp where godly leaders will pour into your kids up close and personal. The influence these leaders have on your kids will be in proportion to the time they are willing to spend with them.

Don’t be afraid to let other believers be role models for your youth. I know how it is; you spoke on a biblical truth the week before camp but when the camp speaker or the camp staff says the exact same thing, your kids act like they never heard it before. It isn’t a bad thing that God lets one plant and another water or cultivate.

WILL THE PROGRAM LAST BEYOND CAMP?

You need to use that extremely strategic week of the calendar year to motivate every camper to keep growing the rest of the year. So, be careful to find out whether the camp program has something for every camper:

For Unsaved and spiritually unmotivated Youth: Will there be opportunities for them to encounter Christ? An interesting question to ask in behalf of spiritually marginal youth whom you want to get to camp is this: “Will this camp appeal to 10th and 11th grade guys?” Why should you ask this question? Well, Connie Francis didn’t sing the song “Where the Boys Are” for nothing! If the older guys are involved during camp, chances increase that other campers will be involved as well.

For Younger Believers: Will these youth be challenged to grow spiritually in meaningful ways? Salvation should not be the “end all” of youth camps. More than half the youth who attend camps are already believers. These young believers needs must be addressed, too. They need to have opportunities to learn how to grow spiritually through small groups.

For Older Teen Believers: Will these “veteran campers” have the opportunity to practice and learn leadership? They need to be given opportunities to be “co-leaders” with older camp leaders, to assume greater responsibility. To treat them the same as you treat first-time campers is to risk having to deal with bad attitudes from many of the older campers.

For Adult sponsors: Will any ministry speak directly to needs of adult believers? The adult leaders are the ones who will continue to challenge the youth back at home. By all means, you want them to be exposed to spiritual growth in their personal walk with Christ while at camp. No adult sponsor is just “the bus driver.” That adult has devoted a week of his/her life to a spiritual endeavor. The adults may come home physically tired, but you better hope they also come back spiritually rejuvenated.

IS THERE A PURPOSE THAT IS ABOUT WAY MORE THAN JUST CAMP?

The point of camp—and of life—is to bring honor and glory to Jesus. When you start promoting camp, your youth will want to know whether the camp facility has an Olympic size pool, horseback riding, alpine tower with zip line, you know—fun stuff. And it may be that those things will persuade your youth (and their friends) to attend camp. But when they return home, do you really want them to only remember the “blob” or would you rather they come home talking about Jesus? If the T-shirt is their most lasting “take-away” from camp, it wasn’t worth it. Don’t waste your valuable time providing “fun” for fun’s sake; make fun events work for you to help you lead your youth to Jesus. If the spiritual impression made at camp doesn’t even last the bus ride home, you have just wasted one of the most important weeks of your calendar year. That one week at camp should translate into impetus for spiritual growth into the next several months, even years.

So how do you find a camp where the elements mentioned above for a meaningful camp are in place? First, seek the Lord in prayer. I’m not kidding; who cares more about the youth in your group than He does? Second, talk to the camp leadership; ask the hard questions that will help you determine what they think is important at camp. Third, ask fellow youth leaders who have attended the camp previously for their impressions. Finally, be willing to experiment with camps . . . until you find one that meets the criterion above. Then, settle in and be prepared to stay with that camp program for the long haul. You will be able to develop camp “traditions” and camp memories that will define your youth group for years to come!

Happy Camp Hunting.

Roger Glidewell is the Founder and Executive Director of Global Youth Ministry, an organization dedicated to developing leaders to reach and disciple teenagers around the world. For more information about Roger or Global Youth Ministry visit www.globalyouthministry.org.

Wherever you look in the media . . . television, movies, the Internet . . . you will find adults who are acting out the current stereotypes of adolescence: the mook and the midriff. Teenage guys love watching shows that feature the mook. He is immature, gross, and wiling to try almost anything. He lacks any moral center and laughs at any criticism. Is that really the way teenage guys act? Like most stereotypes, it is over-done and hardly captures the real heart of the people it lumps together.

Teenage girls are not usually interested in the mook, but they have their own stereotypical star . . . the midriff. She is very aware of her own sexuality at ever earlier ages and uses it to attract attention and get what she wants. Midriffs don’t need to be smart or athletic or capable . . . just pretty.

According to Robert Havighurst, one of the tasks of adolescent development is to learn how to develop appropriate relationships with both sexes. The images our culture provides for students of what relationships are supposed to look like are shocking in their lack of honesty . . . and fall far from the human relationships found in the Bible.

Guys need healthy relationships with guys. If you pay attention to television, most relationships between guys involve guzzling beer together, oogling girls, and playing practical jokes on one another. Okay, maybe an occasional practical joke isn’t too bad, but this is hardly the way the Bible describes the relationships among young men. The Bible calls men to “sharpen” each other, to push each other to be stronger in faith and truer in character (Proverbs 27:17).

Girls need healthy relationships with girls. Too often girls see their relationships with other girls as competition for the attention of a young man. A girl in my youth group once threatened a visiting girl never to come back because the rival attracted too much attention for herself. Girls need to understand their great value in God’s eyes and find support and encouragement from other girls rather than seeing competition.

Guys need healthy relationships with girls. While this certainly means that relationships need to be pure in the sexual sense, I think a healthy guy/girl relationship goes beyond that. Guys need to learn to understand life from a girl’s perspective and girls need to see things through a guy’s eyes. Relationships should develop into a warm brother/sister relationship in which the guy feels protective of his sisters and the girl wants the very best for her brothers.

So, how do we foster this kind of relational maturity among our youth groups? Small youth groups are great places for teenagers to really learn to talk, to care for each other, and to sharpen each other. Discuss what a healthy guy/guy, guy/girl, and girl/girl relationship looks like. Help teenagers to see that it is okay if girls tend to relate to each other face to face while guys tend to relate side to side. Lead students to make your youth ministry a place where people feel safe and protected and where they can practice building solid relationships with both sexes. Pray that God will break down pretenses and help your students to interact with grace and honesty.

The age of marriage has risen sharply in recent years. The idea that teenagers should be preparing for marriage may sound archaic. Robert Havighurst included preparation for marriage as one of his developmental tasks for adolescents. So, should we be helping teenagers to prepare for marriage or is that an old-fashioned idea? And if we should be helping them, how should we go about it?

Assisting students with their developmental issues is really not our primary calling in youth ministry. We are called to make disciples. However, discipleship involves a total life commitment. Helping teenagers walk with Christ means paying attention to all of those things they are going through.

Still, is Havighurst out of date, or do teenagers really need to prepare for marriage? Our culture seems to view dating and sexual relationships as recreation. Some teenagers “hook up” with multiple partners for heavy make-out sessions and sexual encounters, but they don’t see this as related to their future marriage partners at all. That is a gross perversion of everything God says about male/female relationships.

The Bible never really talks about dating. (It was more typical during biblical history for marriages to be arranged than for individuals to find their own partners.) However, in American culture dating is the way young people learn about opposite-sex relationships, discern what qualities in a partner fit them well, and ultimately find their life partner. Teenagers are learning to relate to the opposite sex. The problem is they often get bad instruction on what makes a healthy relationship. The flirtation with members of the opposite sex IS preparation for their future marriage . . . even if it is preparation for a bad marriage.

How do you help your teenagers prepare for their marriage? A marriage that may be many years away?

First, teach them what the Bible says about romance, marriage, and sex. Help them to understand that they are building their character in the way they treat members of the opposite sex now.

Second, guide them to begin to think about how they can be architects of godly families. Talk to them about potholes many people fall into that cause their marriages and their families to fall short of honoring God.

Third and most importantly, give them godly examples. If you are married, work to make your marriage strong. Help them to see that, though good marriage is work, marriage can be a partnership in service to God. And whether you are married or not, find other people in your church who can model what godly marriage can and should be for your students. Help them to have opportunities to interact with and hear from people who are working at creating a godly home.

Adolescents are developing into the people they will be as adults. It can be a frustrating passage for adolescents . . . and for adults who work closely with them. In a large church, emotional outbursts may not disrupt the entire group, but the raw feelings that are so much a part of adolescents can really derail a study or event in a small youth group. Have you ever had anything like this happen?

You are sitting in church devotionals at the end of camp with your band of students. The students are sharing ways they experienced God during the day. Suddenly one of the younger girls bursts into tears and runs out of the room. Everyone sits in stunned silence. Later you get a chance to talk to her one-on-one. Her eyes water again as she begins to tell you how she really likes an older boy in the youth group. Right before devotions, she claims he looked at her like he wished she was dead. “I just couldn’t take it,” she explains. You talk to the young man. He has no idea what you are talking about, but he doesn’t want the girl to think he doesn’t care about her so he goes to apologize.

Emotions in teenagers are driven by hormones. The rapid changes in their bodies often lead them to respond with extreme feelings. Teenagers are seldom just happy . . . they are DELIRIOUSLY OVERJOYED. Teenagers can fly into a rage with a minor annoyance. And a wrong look can send them into depression.

In describing the developmental tasks of adolescence, Robert Havighurst suggests that, during their teenage years, teenagers should achieve emotional independence. The goal is not for teenagers to lose the need for any emotional support. None of us ever really achieve that, nor should we. Rather the goal is for teenagers to learn how to manage their emotions so that their emotions don’t control their lives.

So, how do you help the youth you work with to move toward emotional independence?

First, realize that “emotional roller coasters” are a part of growing up. Don’t over-react when a teenager responds to you angrily or with tears. Accept them as they are now.

Second, give teenagers permission to feel. Tell them that, when it seems like someone is snubbing you, it makes sense to feel hurt. When someone does something mean to you, you should feel anger.

Third, teach them the importance of “self-talk.” It is often not the situation but rather what we tell ourselves about the situation that leads to strong negative emotion. Don’t tell yourself: He looked at me in a nasty way; he must hate me. Instead, tell yourself: He seemed to look at me in a nasty way, but we are friends so he probably didn’t mean anything by it. I think I’ll ask him later if there is a problem.

Finally, encourage teenagers to carry their frustrations, hurts, and anxieties to God. He loves them and cares deeply about what they feel.