Teaching

Pseudo-stupidity.

It is when a student looks back at you with a completely blank look and shrugs when you ask him . . . well, anything. Your teenagers don’t have to be rocket scientists or brain surgeons, but one of the goals of adolescence, according to Robert Havighurst, is to develop intellectual skills. So, does the development of intellectual skills have anything to do with what we do in youth ministry, or is that one of those issues we can just count on other people to address?

Adolescent brains are changing. Teenagers are gaining the ability to think and reason in ways they never have before. (If you doubt that, ask their parents. Teenagers invent new ways almost daily to argue every possible point with their parental units.) In the middle of all of the changes going on in an adolescent’s body, what happens in her head may be the most significant part.

While the brain is developing quickly in adolescence, some research seems to indicate that it doesn’t just happen automatically. The cognitive processes (that is, how kids think) develop best when teenagers are guided to practice the hard work of careful consideration. When you ask a young teenager why he did what he did and he tells you he doesn’t know, the truth is, he doesn’t know. He is just beginning to develop the ability to figure all of that out.

One theorist suggested that for teenagers, higher reasoning is like going through a jungle with a machete. The first time through is hard work. You have to hack your way through dense undergrowth in order to clear a path. However, the next time you walk the same path, it will be much easier . . . and will get easier with each repeated effort. As teenagers practice firing the synapses that help them to think through a difficult problem or look at alternatives to their actions, it may be tough for them at first. Gradually, they will be able to do this thinking automatically, much as adults do.

So, how do you help teenagers develop intellectual skills?

1. As you are teaching and discipling younger youth, take it slow. You may have to ask them several follow-up questions before they can put the pieces together. They need you to lead them to think all the way through an issue and not just give them the correct answer.
2. Don’t be afraid to ask youth hard questions . . . especially as teenagers get older. Ask them to wrestle with issues of faith and come up with answers that make sense. You can cover more verses in the Bible study if you just explain the point to them, but you will teach them more if you give them time to figure it out.
3. Find ways for them to articulate their faith. Too many teenagers graduate from high school (and occasionally even college) still living on the faith of their parents. Ask them to examine why they trust God, what experiences and what evidence leads them to put confidence in God and in His Word. Help them to wrestle through the implications of their faith on their lives.

In many large churches, teenagers sit in a big room while someone six rows away teaches them the Bible through a loud speaker. Teenagers may engage in the Bible study and enjoy the setting. They may take good truths home with them. In the small church, you have the unique opportunity to do more than tell your students what to believe. You can challenge them to think through the lesson and tell you what is true based on their understanding of Scripture. Help them flex their intellectual muscle as you teach and you will make a tremendous difference.

The thing that makes youth ministry different than other ministries in the church is . . . well, that we work with youth. Challenges exist in ministry with kindergarteners, ministry with college students, or ministry with senior adults, but teenagers face some unique challenges. Contextualizing biblical ministry into the lives of teenagers means addressing those issues that make adolescents unique. Robert Havighurst suggested a series of developmental tasks that adolescents need to accomplish if they are to be productive adults. While Havighurst was not particularly interested in the spiritual maturity of teenagers, His developmental tasks definitely are issues we need to think about as we disciple teenagers.

One of the tasks Havighurst said adolescents must accomplish is to accept their physique.

People come in lots of shapes and sizes. Some of us are tall, some are short. Some of us have big noses, some of us funny little turned-up noses. Some of us have big feet. Some of us even have an extra toe. I know, that’s over-kill. You all know that we don’t look alike. The problem for teenagers is that they are just getting good at introspection and most of them are starting to think about how they compare to others for the first time in their lives. Add to that the fact that some teenagers grow a lot faster or a lot slower than their peers, and you have the makings for a teenage crisis.

Teenagers have to learn to be comfortable in their own skin. A teenager may not be excited about being short, but height seldom determines how productive and effective a person is in life . . . unless he or she happens to be a professional basketball player. The shape of a person’s nose may not be to their liking, but most of us discover that people love us regardless of how well our noses fit our faces. In fact, we are likely to discover that some people like a “Roman nose.”

How do we help teenagers with this developmental task? First, be accepting of teenagers. Whether a teenager is a candidate for the next teen model or has trouble finding a spot on their face that doesn’t have a pimple, show her by your words and actions that she is very valuable to you . . . and to the Father. Second, teach students that the Bible claims they are greatly loved by God and are created to be useful to him. Third, encourage teenagers to focus on things they like about themselves instead of focusing on what they dislike.

When Samuel went to Jesse’s house to anoint the next king of Israel, he was draw to the tall and well-built sons. He was sure that one of those would be the man of God’s choosing. It was strange that God chose the little brother who no one even bothered to call into the house. God’s instruction to Samuel is good for us to hear as well: “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7).

Is money tight for you this Christmas? It is for me. I have several friends who are feeling the crunch of the loss of a job. They are either unemployed or under-employed. It is frustrating for those of us who like to buy and give gifts to be unable to do that. We know that gits are not what Christmas is about . . . but being able to give gifts is . . . well, fun. Maybe you would like to do something special for your youth group, but you just don’t have the ability. Maybe it is harder this year for your teenagers to buy gifts for an Angel Tree child or contribute to a food box for a needy family. Maybe the tightening of the belt that many of us are having to do at Christmas this year is a blessing. In a culture where kids are looking for a new iPod Touch under the tree instead of a dolly, maybe we need to revisit ways to celebrate Christmas that are a little less commercial.

As you teach your youth group this Christmas, emphasize gratitude and contentment. I know, some of your kids will get the new iPod Touch for Christmas. Extravagance may not be a great way to celebrate Christmas, but our Bible study on simplicity may not penetrate heir adolescent brains. However, ask them what a person really needs to be healthy and happy. Help them to think through whether new gadgets and toys really make a person happy. Encourage them to be grateful to God for the things he has given them and content with what they have. Of course, it is a great time to mention people that lack those things a person really needs.

Encourage youth to give . . . to parents, family, and friends. But encourage them to find ways to give that don’t cost money. Often gifts that are given from the work of your hands or the sweat of your brow mean more than gifts that are given from your wallet (or your parent’s wallet). Encourage students to think of things they are good at and give those things away. One student might bake sugar cookies, while another prints and frames a picture of the family he has taken. A third student might offer his brother help with his homework for Christmas. Maybe it would be a good thing for us to practice this as well by thinking of some gift we can give our students that would be a gift of love from our hands, not our money.

Ultimately, Christmas is not about gifts. it’s not really about family meals or love between each other. Ultimately, Christmas is about the love of a Savior, lavished on us when we were lost in our sins. Ask your students how they can share THAT gift . . . a gift that is not their own, but comes from Jesus.

A teenage girl bounces out of her room and heads to school . . . dressed in a skirt so short it hardly covers the essentials. When her mother stops her and sends her back to her room to change, she rages. “Why are you trying to make me look like you? That’s not who I am!” She has mistaken her clothes for her identity. But that’s actually not that common a mistake for a young teenager.

Theorist and human development specialist Erik Erikson said that human development involves eight tasks. When a person successfully navigates the task for a phase of life, he or she is capable of moving on to the next task. When a person fails to successfully address the task, they end up suffering with that development task indefinitely. For adolescents, Erikson said the task is identity development. If they fail to determine who they are, teenagers will struggle with role confusion. So, how do you help the teenagers in your youth group navigate the developmental task of building their identity?

Identity development is not a simple task. We can tell teenagers that they are designed by God and that they need to build their sense of self on their relationship with Christ, but that Bible study will not give teenagers all they need to end the quest. For most young teenagers, the task of identity development involves some level of experimentation. They “try on” different identities to see what feels right to them. (A friend of mine used to call this phenomenon “trying on hats.”) Identity building will require some time and may involve some failures . . . some funny, some frustrating. Teenagers need our patience and understanding. They also need our input.

Tell youth that they are valuable. Help them to know that they are made in the image of God. Make sure they understand some of what that means. Teach them what it really means to be “in Christ.” Guide youth to see that they have a purpose in the kingdom of God, that they are useful to God, that their life counts. Help them to see the work of Christ in their life to make them righteous, to make them holy. Tell them and keep on telling them.

Confront in love the faulty attitudes that teenagers develop about their identity. Give them experiences that help them to understand that ministry to others makes them a richer person than living a selfish life does. Help them to understand that their identity is not found in what they do on the outside, but on who they are on the inside.

Be a role model for your teenagers. Show them what a real Christian life looks like. Don’t expect perfection of yourself but be intentional about living your life for Christ and seeking forgiveness when you sin. Help students to see that a life lived for Christ is a rich and full life.

The process of identity building is tough and it can be frustrating for youth leaders. It is disappointing to see teenagers trying on hats that don’t square with who God says they are. Don’t give students over to the voices of the world. Give them some good hats to try on and encourage them to replace the foolish ones with the ones that will lead to a Christ-centered life.

The Apostle Paul was talking late into the night. He was in a third story room with the church at Troas for what he believed would be his last message. I suppose he must have felt like every word was essential. Luke wrote that Paul “talked on and on” (Acts 20:9). One of the teenagers, Eutychus, was sitting in the window. Probably the First Century equivalent of leaning back in his chair. He fell asleep. Paul was preaching for the last time in Troas and the teenage guy fell asleep. Typical. I’ve been in youth classes when someone fell asleep while they were leaning back against the wall and ended up crashing to the floor. Falling asleep in a third-story window is a bit more hazardous. Eutychus slid out the window and fell to his death. Fortunately, God used Paul to restore life to him. I’ve warned teenagers before that I wasn’t sure I could do what Paul did so they had better not sleep during my lessons.

Do you wonder what Paul thought? I mean, how do you think Paul felt that one of the young heroes of the Troas church slept through his heart-felt lesson . . . the last he would give? I wonder if he felt like he would have spent his time better if he had gone to town and taken in a movie. If you have been in youth ministry very long, you have probably experienced what it is like to spend hours praying over, studying, and planning a lesson . . . only to be met by yawns and questions like, “How much longer is this lesson going to be?” How do you keep doing youth ministry when that is the response of your youth?

First, let me assure you that we have all been there. If the Apostle Paul couldn’t keep a teenager awake for his lesson . . . if Jesus could teach the disciples and have them completely miss the point . . . if compassionate Barnabas could take his teenage cousin on a mission trip only to have him bail out and go home when things got tough, then we are in good company when our teenagers are unresponsive. Over and over again, God called out his people for being “stiff-necked.” Times are not really all that different. Churches . . . even youth groups . . . are still filled with stiff-necked people.

Second, check your motives. I know, you got into youth ministry because you love teenagers and want to see God working in their lives. That’s a good motive, right? Truthfully, the right motive for doing youth ministry is that God has called you to it. Like Jeremiah, you share truth with teenagers because God gave you the truth . . . whether they listen or not. Know that your Heavenly Father is pleased with your obedience even if your teenagers would rather be watching “Hannah Montana.”

Third, keep your sense of humor. Your teenagers probably don’t mean to discount your efforts when they fall asleep in your class. They assume you know they were up all night playing some game that had them crashing their cars into street lamps. Tease them instead of railing at them. It will usually win them over.

Finally, be faithful. Don’t give up. Don’t quit preparing. Don’t deflate. And don’t allow the enemy to convince you that your work as youth leader is having no fruit. Trust God. Pray. And value every moment you get to spend with students. Trust that God will use his word to tender their hearts in his time.

Ever sit in one of those Bible study classes where someone reads a verse and then everyone talks about what the passage means to them. I’m all for reading the Bible together and I like using discussion as a teaching tool, but I just can’t picture Jesus teaching the Bible that way. I think Jesus was the greatest teacher who ever lived, so maybe we can learn some things about teaching from him.

1. Jesus was a living example of what he taught. Most of your students have heard impassioned talks. They have done the fun activities that come out of the Bible study books. What they need are real-life examples of what it means to walk with Jesus.
2. Jesus was a master story-teller. Stories are more than just illustrations. They are word pictures. They help students to see principles fleshed out in real life. Some people say that teenagers today are less responsive to logical arguments. They are image-driven. If you want to convince them to follow God they are probably going to be more moved by pictures of what that looks like than arguments about why they should care.
3. Jesus was not afraid to confront. He may have been a little slower to address the adultery of the woman at the well than he was to call Peter, Satan, and to tell Peter to get behind him, but he addressed sin head-on. I think people received Jesus’ rebukes because they knew how much Jesus really loved them. We have a responsibility to address sin in the lives of our students. If our students know how much we love them, I think they will receive that from us.
4. Jesus taught the crowds, but he discipled the Twelve. I don’t know how many youth are in your group. I think you have a responsibility to share truth with every teenager your ministry can touch. But, you can really invest in a handful of students. Don’t neglect discipling your “Twelve” (even if there is only one in your Twelve) in order to invest in the crowd.

Jesus did so much more. I suppose we could write books about the teaching of Jesus and never exhaust what he taught us about teaching. Learning to teach as Jesus did will be a lifelong pursuit. Hopefully, these ideas will give you a place to start.

Christian music has come a long way since the days of the Imperials. (Most of you are too young to remember the Imperials, and that’s probably for the best.) The message of Christ is being presented in a lot of different kinds of music today. If you poke around on the Christian music page at iTunes, you find everything from praise music to southern gospel to hard-core garage band. Of course, most of your students are probably barely aware of the music that is available to them. How can you introduce them to great Christian bands?

• Play the music in your car or in the church van when you are going to youth activities. Talk about the music so your students know it is something you are playing for them.
• Plug some speakers into your iPod and let students listen to a song that reinforces your Bible study lesson. Follow up by asking what the song writer was trying to say.
• Use music during Bible study times. Play it as students are coming in or working on group assignments. It’s amazing how quickly students will gather when you turn off the music to get started or to gather the group back together.
• Take students to Christian concerts when they are in your area. Decorate your youth room with posters of the Christian artists your students like.

What are some other ideas? How do you use Christian music in your youth ministry?

My friend, Ferdi, is a Philippino of Chinese descent. He was recently called to work as the youth leader in a Korean church in the Philippines. In an e-mail, I asked him how the work was going. “Well,” he said, “but I have to make sure I say everything in the simplest words I can so that they can be translated for the students who only speak Korean.” That got me thinking. Do the youth we work with understand what we teach them, or are they as lost as Koreans trying to understand a Philippine language?

Some youth ministry leaders think those of us working with teenagers are engaged in a cross-cultural enterprise. They say that the adolescent culture in the United States is so far removed from the culture we live in as adults that, to reach young people, we have to reach into a different culture, translating the Gospel into something they can understand as we teach them. Certainly, teenager share much of the American culture of adults, but I suspect there is an element of truth to this claim. Teenagers today are more multi-cultural, more technologically savvy, and have access to more information than my generation ever did. Most of your younger youth view the 9/11 attacks in a way that is similar to how my generation viewed Pearl Harbor. It was a tragic event of the past, but it was long ago.

So, how does this affect the way we approach teaching them. Many youth leaders believe the best approach is for us to learn as much as we can about the world of teenagers. They say we need to study their trends, watch the movies and TV shows they watch, play their video games, and walk the halls of their schools. This has a lot of merit. You will have a better sense of how to teach your teenagers when you understand what it is like to walk in their shoes. You will have a better sense of how to address the lies they are being fed . . . about sex, God, and their own value. Study of their culture will also help you to anticipate things that just don’t connect with them. If they are constantly taught that humans are amoral, born without a good or bad nature, then they are not likely to understand when you talk about our sin nature. You may need to explain it a bit further.

However, I think my Philippino friend had it right. Mostly, we need to present the truths of the Bible as simply as we can. We need to translate every truth of Scripture so that teenagers can understand. I don’t mean that we need to make the Bible simplistic. The Bible is anything but that. But, in teaching complicated and profound truth, we need to slow down and make it clear to them.

Want to know if they got it? Ask them to explain it back to you . . . preferably a week later.

Yes, I did go for the sensational title. Sorry. Please teach them that True Love Waits! But encourage your teenagers to become spiritual parents. Your youth will never have so many rich opportunities to make Christ known as they will while they are attending high school. Don’t let them skip through their school days without giving a moment’s consideration to the spiritual direction of their classmates.How do you get them to share their faith?

First, make sure they understand what it means to be a Christian. You would be surprised how many teenagers claim to be Christians, but don’t really understand what that means. We don’t become Christ-followers by going to church, doing good deeds, or reading the Bible. Salvation is what the Holy Spirit does when we repent of our sins and place our faith in Jesus Christ. Go over it again and again.

Second, help your teenagers to learn to verbalize their faith. Lead them to talk about how they came to know Christ, what it means to follow Christ, and how their faith impacts their lives. A technique I learned from one of my mentors, Clyde Hall, is to ask them to write a one-page statement of how they came to know Christ, then ask them to pair up and tell their story to each other in one minute. After the two minutes, they change partners and share it again. Keep repeating it as long as you have time.

Third, guide your teenagers to understand what eternity without Christ is like. As believers, we acknowledge a real place called hell. It isn’t some place you would want your friends to go. However, don’t just focus on the negative. Help them to grasp what an amazing thing it is that they can know God personally and how sad it is that so many in our world lack a personal relationship with him.

Fourth, pray. Pray for them. Get them to pray for each other. And pray together for their lost friends. Create experiences that they can invite their lost friends to so that they can start the conversation.

Keep talking about being a spiritual parent to other people. The more students grow to walk in Christ, the more it will mean to them to take their friends with them.

You walk into your class on Sunday morning. Only one middle school boy is there . . . and is feeling uncomfortable because no one else is there. He answers your questions, but he won’t establish eye-contact. Another middle schooler wanders in and the two boys quickly begin to flick paper bits at each other. A sophomore girl drags in looking sullen. About 10 minutes after time for class to start you have a group of youth who all look bored, distracted, or asleep. You have been excited about the truths you are going to teach them almost all week, but when you say, “Okay, guys, let’s get into the Word,” they give you an audible groan. How do you help kids get excited about Bible study?

First, understand that teenagers’ bodies have a funny rythmn to them. Teenagers are driven to excitement and are given to staying up all night. However, their growing bodies need lots of sleep so getting up early is difficult for them. If you want them to get interested in the Bible study, you are probably going to have to capture their attention first.

Before you start planning calesthentics for each morning’s Bible study, think about this. Different teenagers learn differently. While there are a lot of ways to look at their learning preferences, there are three basic learning styles . . . and they are true for adults as well as youth.

1. Some students are auditory learners. They learn by hearing. They are interested in what you have to say, especially when you are couching your message in a story. But, they also like to hear what their peers are thinking. For these learners, try kicking off the study with a joke that relates in some way, then ask discussion questions that get them engaged.
2. Some students are visual learners. They learn best by seeing. It’s not that your words are not important to them, but if they can see what you are talking about in a diagram, an illustration, or a video, they are more likely to get it. For these learners, you might want to start the lesson by playing a video clip from a movie they like, then ask them to tear a sheet of construction paper into some kind of picture of the concept you are wanting to address.
3. Some students are kinesthetic learners. They learn best by doing. They love to play games, to move around, to experiment. For these learners, try starting the lesson with tag-team role-plays where two kids start a scene that you describe, but when a player is not sure what to say or do, they tag another player who continues the character and the scene.

Of course, the challenge is that you have all of these types of learners in every class. So, use different methods. Mix things up. Have some segments of the class that will appeal to kinesthetic learners, while other segments deal with auditory and visual learners. Almost all kids like to laugh, like to build friendships, and want to be challenged to make their lives count. Teach with passion, humor, and connection to them, regardless of the methods you are using.