art by: Filipe dos Santos
Some thoughts on the role of youth in the community of believers.
It has not been uncommon for me in the last decade as a youth minister to be approached with a request to have the youth help with this or that.
“Hey we need the leaves raked.” Or, “Hey (insert manual labor job) needs to get done. Don’t you think this would be a great way for the youth to be a part of the church body?”
I’ve often struggled with this mentality. For some young people, raking leaves or setting up chairs is a legitimate exercise of their gifts. But to relegate young people to only selected slots within the community is to deny the validity of their spiritual gifts. When they go to school, they read Shakespeare, learn calculus and seek to understand poetry. They hold student government offices and find outlets for their many gifts and abilities. We ask them to adhere to the moral codes of Christendom, which takes no less commitment at age 17 then at 37. But do we accept openly that a young person can be a legitimate member of the body outside the youth ministry?
I once suggested that an associate pastor go and speak to the women’s ministry and see if they wanted to come work in the kitchen during an all-church meeting. He was caught so off guard, he actually said, “Well the all-church meeting is for adults.” In this statement, my point is revealed. If we are having an all-church meeting, why aren’t the youth invited? You know what it says. It says YOU ARE NOT A PART OF THE CHURCH. We wonder why students are disengaged from the church body. I don’t claim to know everything about young people, but I do know that they have a keen radar for being unwanted or unaccepted. Many students are in love with Jesus, yet could live without “the church.” I assert that this is not the fault of the students.
What are we to do? Our ministries answer this question for us. When is a student the most engaged with the church? It has been my experience that mission trips and service opportunities draw out students more then anything else we do. So why is this? Because in a mission context, students experience a genuine opportunity to use their gifting in the real world. They aren’t just waiting to be an adult so they can be part of what God is doing. I have seen students work unselfishly from early in the morning until late at night for days because what they were being asked to do mattered. In these moments they experience what they are missing in the church. You can insert many different analogies: having a seat at the table, getting off the sidelines, etc. Oh, how exciting it is to see a young person realize that Jesus is working through them to bless someone.
As a community, we must seek to engage young people and believe that they are just as called as the rest of us. We must show them that God’s love and the hope that they have is no less valuable because they can’t buy beer yet. I am not saying that a teenager is an adult, but we must allow them an opportunity to sit at the table, both to learn and to contribute.
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