I never had the Jerry Maguire moment that Andy Root awaits. All throughout my years studying youth ministry and theology at a Bible college, it never came. Even now, despite all the voices decrying the flawed theologies and methodologies that youth ministry has embodied for the past few decades (my own included), I still have an incredible sense of hope for youth ministry in the Western church. I don’t buy into the idea that “youth ministry is hurting more than helping.” Youth ministry just needs its own identity deconstruction and restoration—one might even call it an adolescence.
This youth ministry identity formation is already well under way, with folks like Root leading the charge. From intergenerational ministries to becoming more theologically minded to a “youth ministry 3.0″ to fostering a “sticky faith,” the rethinking of youth ministry has been in the works. It’s just difficult to see what all these new identity-shaping values will create in the future of youth ministry.
Part of that future requires a rethinking of adolescence itself. If adolescence is truly harmful and culturally created, and if the church itself is partly responsible for its propagation, what can we do? The answer to that question feels enormous. Recently, I had the opportunity to meet Robert Epstein, author of the book Teen 2.0. Epstein invited a group of us into his home, and we had the opportunity to ask questions and pick his brain on adolescence and the church. We talked a great deal about the book itself—its publishing issues, its more radical ideas, etc. Despite the dialogue, this enormous question loomed in the back of my mind: What can we do about adolescence?
Epstein shared a few answers, and his response continues to shape my thinking on this subject. His most memorable response was simply this: “Our culture’s highly negative messages about teenagers cannot be the primary source of our expectations.” We hear about at-risk youth and rebellious teenagers in the news almost constantly, and there are plenty of negative perceptions of teens within our own church congregations. A brief search of teenager on Amazon brought up titles like Have A New Teenager by Friday, Yes, Your Teen Is Crazy! and What Do You Expect? She’s a Teenager! All suggest that teenagers are crazy, volatile and in dire need of being fixed. In essence, they’re problems, not people. These highly negative messages are simply false.
I once heard about a psychological phenomenon called the Pygmalion Effect, in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform. When we expect only immaturity, apathy and rebellion from young people, we’ll likely find it. If our expectations shift, viewing young people as eager and filled with potential, they can transform right in front of our eyes. Youth workers know this inherently; that’s why we do what we do. Epstein suggests that this is a revolutionary idea in our culture. Perhaps we can be the champions of this idea in our churches and communities.
Epstein also encourages the creating of a “micro-culture,” both within our own youth ministries and our congregations. A micro-culture is the creation of a new culture, one that embraces a different ethos and set of values than the surrounding zeitgeist. It is not an isolationist response suggesting that the church hide from the world around it. It is rather fostering the grassroots of a new way of being in the world that rejects the notion of adolescence. Root hints at these micro-cultures when he writes, “If our local congregations began (even if it was only on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings) treating young people as adults, it might have huge ramifications on the rest of society.” The local church can become this micro-culture where adolescence simply does not exist. What would it look like?
Perhaps the micro-culture would require a new theology of the priesthood of all believers that doesn’t have an age limit attached to it. We would have to re-imagine the value of a person, seeing young people as such—young people—and not as almost-people or people-when-they-turn-18. What if the church was the one place where teenagers were truly treated as equals, not relegated to the margins but also not worshiped as youthful gods? What if there were no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female, adult and teenager, for we are all one in Christ Jesus? Youth ministry can be the front runners for this cultural shift. Root nails it, writing, “We will need someone to continue to remind the congregation to see these young people not as crazed adolescents, as society continues to impose, but as young, responsible adults.”
The micro-culture can get smaller still. I have a two-year-old son, and my wife is pregnant with our second child. We are trying to create a family culture where our children are viewed as “apprentice adults” (another Epstein term), even at an early age. Instead of segregating my son from the world of adults, we invite him to be with us, work alongside us, grow in his own strengths and competencies. If he is capable of doing something and shows interest in it, then we help him learn by doing it. Case in point: When we were unloading the groceries, he pointed at a bag and said, “Me carry.”
My wife and I exchanged glances, knowing the bag was too heavy. We could have said, “No, you’re too little,” and quickly carried the bags ourselves. It would have been much faster, and he could have gone on to playing with his toys. But we stopped, emptied the bag of some of its contents and watched as he slowly half carried, half dragged the bag from the garage to the kitchen. When he reached his destination, we put the groceries away, with him excitedly handing various items up as we placed them in the pantry. What was an ordinary errand turned into a sacred moment for our family, a place where parent and child were present and growing together as the Spirit of God spoke to my heart: See how much he can already do? See how wonderfully I’ve created him in my image?
Of course, there are boundaries on what he can and should experience; we’re not showing him R-rated films or expecting him to drive a car by age four. Nor are we pressuring him to grow up too fast as some sort of homegrown child prodigy. To be honest, I don’t know how he’ll turn out; he’s only two, and I’ve still got a lot to learn myself. But I’m hoping he’ll become a wise and loving and Jesus-following adult, not a Jesus-following teenager. He needs someone to be his advocate as he grows. He needs someone to mentor and disciple him, to expect him to live in our world as a kingdom-minded adult. Root rightly states that “youth ministry is simply ministry, ministry human person to human person in search of God.” My son and I are human beings searching for God together and finding him in the person of Jesus.
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