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extended adolescence

Each Student is a Culture (art of connecting pt. 4)


The age of one-size-fits-all youth ministry is over.  It has to be.  We live in a dynamic time filled with diversity.  This is an exciting time to be in ministry to youth.  Our world is smaller than ever before.  Cultures are not only clashing but blending to create new expressions of culture.  In this new era of modern life(culture) context is king.

Think about your average youth group gathering.  Think about the different elements that are present in your group:

  • Countries of origin
  • Race and ethnicity
  • Religious background
  • Parenting styles that shaped them
  • Generational influences
  • Abilities and disabilities
  • Personality
  • Sexual orientation
  • Political leanings
  • Thinking styles
  • Values and beliefs
  • Style and tastes

Historically we would rush in with an attempt to connect with kids on our terms with our own personal culture leading the way (just a heads up, I’m pretty sure nobody listens to Petra anymore so don’t lead with that).  In other words, just like early missionaries did, we would try to strip them of their own culture and colonize them to be, think, look, and act just like us.  It’s no wonder they have gone underground.

Cultural Artifacts:

Instant digital music, iPods, YouTube videos, Facebook, etc.

What other cultural artifacts can you think of, as it relates to contemporary youth?

Values and Assumptions:

Individualism, consumerism, instant gratification, collaborations, cause-driven, tolerance, etc.

What other values and assumptions can you identify that are held by youth today?

Where did these values and assumptions come from?

Individual Personalities:

Jocks, emo, nerds, Queen Bee, bully, outgoing, shy, obnoxious, flirty, school spirit, etc.

What is the current dominant personality being presented by each individual student?

Is there a connection between the personality and behaviors? 

Often, all we see are the cultural artifacts and we base our own assumptions on these.

David Livermore, in his book Cultural Intelligence, says:

“When measuring your Cultural Intelligence, a few questions to ask yourself include:

  • Am I conscious of what I need to know about a culture that is unfamiliar to me?
  • Am I conscious of how my cultural background shapes the way I read the Bible?
  • Do I determine what I need to know about a culture before I interact with people from that culture?
  • Do I compare my previous ideas about a culture with what I actually experience during cross-cultural interactions?
  • Do I check for appropriate ways to talk about my faith in cross-cultural situations?”

Is it fair to expect that we should be intentionally asking ourselves these questions as it relates to working with youth today?  Can you image the amazing discussions you can have with your volunteers as you wrestle with these kinds of questions?

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Building Bridges (art of connecting pt. 1)


One of the Apostle Paul’s most famous speeches took place at Mars Hill, the Areopagus, in Athens.  He noted that they appeared to be a very religious lot of people due to the sheer number of statues they had to their gods.  In a brilliant move he identified the one statue that was for the “unknown” god and he saw his bridge.  Paul then launched into his epic sermon about the “unknown” God and described our Father to the Greeks.  He masterfully used a technique called bridge building to connect with his audience.

Kids today are completely enmeshed in pop culture.  We could, and should be aware of what is shaping our youth today and much of what we see and hear impacts them more than we know.  But I’m not simply talking about knowing what the newest Katy Perry song is blazing up the charts, what I’m talking about is building a bridge with a language of the soul.

In order to connect with young people they first have to know that you’re interested and trustworthy.  They are most likely already suspicious of adults anyway.  Too often we have an agenda for them and they know that.  It’s what drives them underground many times.  What we’re talking about here is a fundamental belief that we have something in common with the young people we love and hope to reach.

If we say things like, “Teens today are just so much more _________ than we were.” or “Kids today are just lazy and apathetic.” we create distance between us and them.  If we fail to see that they have the same longings that drove us then and drive us now there will be no bridge to walk across.  All we will have to work with is a shallow relationship and all the change we’re likely to affect is shallow compliance to an empty belief system.  We have to find common ground and that common ground should be our shared humanity.

In his ground breaking book Hurt: Inside the World of Today’s Teenagers, Chap Clark identifies six intrinsic longings of all students.  Those longings are: to belong, to matter, to be wanted, to be uniquely ourselves, for a safe place, and to be taken seriously.  Who among us can’t relate to those longings?  I work with drug addicted emerging adults.  Daily they express to me their desire to satisfy those very longings and that much of their behavior was an attempt to do just that.

After some small talk I usually ask a student where in their life do they feel they belong.  Where do they and what do they do that makes them feel like they matter?  Who takes you seriously?  Where are the safest places for you to just be yourself?  These are the questions that matter to students even if they don’t have the language to articulate them.

What the Apostle Paul did was provide an opportunity for those in the crowd to have their longings satisfied in a permanent manner by depending on the One true God.  A civilization that worships everything is an empty civilization desperately searching for meaning.  They apparently hadn’t found that in the many false gods they worshipped.

We have the same opportunity to connect the kids in our community to the very God that Paul preached about to the Greeks but first we must take to time to build a bridge by learning about them and their longings.  There is ALWAYS a bridge and it’s up to us to find it.

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Sex and Violence in Youth Ministry


In today’s urban dating culture many express how frustrating and unsatisfied they are because dating patterns encourage young men to be aggressive and young women to be accommodating.

Unfortunately, sex and violence are so intertwined for men that an easy separation is impossible.  Violence is constantly glamorized and sexualized in the urban culture.  The multibillion-dollar pornography industry is the clearest example of how we learn that power and control are tied to sexual arousal.  Even in children’s comic books, popular music and videos, and magazine advertisements, we are constantly reminded that dominating and subduing women is sexy and arousing.  The primary message young men receive is that having sexual access to women and having someone sexually vulnerable to you are the quintessential signs of male power, the epitome of success.  Women are constantly shown accompanying other signs of male power and success, such as fast cars, fancy stereos, money, and guns.

Some of these images portray the women as protesting vigorously at first, then finally giving up and enjoying sex.  In this way young men are taught that women are somehow turned on by the aggression displayed by men.  They may protest or say no at first to protect their reputation, but when they relax and enjoy it, they will grow aroused by the man’s aggression.  If they don’t, then there is something wrong with them.

The result of this training is that men are given permission to use sexual aggression to control women, to deny what they’re doing and then assert that it’s no big deal anyway.  If this goes on long enough it soon becomes the norm.  Young men assume this is the way relations between men and women are naturally.  If there is any guilt or remorse, the young women gets the blame.

  • She’s a tease
  • She’s frigid
  • She’s too emotional
  • She shouldn’t have said that
  • She knew that would make me angry
  • She asked for it
  • She said no but she meant yes
  • If she didn’t want it she wouldn’t dress like that

There are so many layers of aggression, blame, and denial that there is no way for young men to see the impact their thoughts and behaviors have on the women around them.  We can even use the Scriptures to reinforce these ideas that women are inferior, further damaging the inherent dignity and value each young woman has, leading to a fractured image of who she was created to be by God.

  • What role does the church/your ministry have in (inadvertently) reinforcing these false beliefs?
  • When was the last time you had a conversation about male gender training with the young men in your ministry?
  • What are new values/beliefs that need to be taught from Scripture to replace old, harmful beliefs?
  • How can we affirm young males without encouraging male privilege?
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