“Creating a Culture of Love and Acceptance with Teenagers”
Recently, a group of parents requested to come and meet with our youth ministry staff to discuss some “concerns” that they and some other parents had about the direction of our youth ministry. It was obvious that they had been talking amongst themselves and with other families for a few months. Thankfully, these parents took the time to organize their thoughts into a written document that expressed their concerns in a non-threatening way. For the most part, their concerns were par for the course in ministry. But one of their concerns dominated the discussion in our meeting that night.
These parents were very concerned that our youth ministry was not a “safe place” for the students emotionally and spiritually. Stories of ridicule, bullying, exclusion, cliques, hatefulness, hazing, and more were circulating around with our families, and they were very concerned that our staff was doing little to address the situation.
As I sat and listened to the discussion progress, I realized that each family in the room was discussing their oldest child who had come into the youth ministry during the past few years. Together with their experiences in school, these parents were experiencing the brutalities of youth culture for the first time. While I consider this youth ministry to be one of the kinder, more gentler group of students with which I have ever worked, I had to acknowledge that these students were teenagers and that they were capable of being very unloving and hateful, even towards me.
These parents are very frustrated because they passionately believe that church should be a “safe place” where students can come and be loved and accepted for who they are, not a place to be mistreated like they are at school. They are frustrated and they want something done about it….now.
While I could have gone into a long drawn out explanation about how teenagers are usually a reflection of their parents and how the adult culture in the church also struggles with these same issues, I sensed that God was nudging me to take a closer look at our ministry and consider what could be done to help create a more loving and accepting atmosphere and culture with our students. Over the next few days, God impressed several important changes we could implement in our ministry immediately.
1. Model the behavior you desire.
If we really want our teens to create a culture of love and acceptance in our ministries, we need to be first in line to model this attitude and behavior. Too often teens deal with a “do as I say, not as I do” expectation from parents and other leaders in their lives. This type of double standard creates conflict and confusion in their lives. Do students expect to be warmly greeted by the adult leaders when they come? Are hugs, high fives, and knuckles freely given out each week? Do you and your adult leaders truly celebrate with each student who comes with a story of making the team or passing the big test? Do you really pray for every request you promise to pray for? Teenagers feed off of the energy and atmosphere created by the adults each week. They have an innate sense of knowing when things aren’t quite as they seem. If the teenagers aren’t very loving, we have to look in the mirror and see if we really are loving them for who they really are, flaws and all.
2. Teach and Talk about it.
We live in the busiest culture on the planet. We rush from one commitment to the next. Too many people simply feel overwhelmed and struggle to prioritize what is most important in their lives. As a result, their personal relationship with God and church attendance falls somewhere in between soccer practice and the new season of the latest popular TV show..
When Jesus called the disciples, He didn’t ask them to see if they could make some time to fit them into their busy lives. He called them to truly “follow” Him and make Him the primary priority in their lives.
Jesus stated it this way when addressing the crowds…
Then He said to them all: “Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Me.” (Luke 9:23 NIV)
As youth workers, we can always spend time preaching and teaching about the love of God and our responsibility to love one another. Bible studies and sermon series abound on this subject. But, when the message doesn’t become the reality of your context, some teens can become frustrated with an “all talk” and “no action” situation. It never fails to amuse me when some of our most unloving and unkind students will come to me after a message on loving one another and make comments about how several other students “shoulda heard that one”!
That is why it is so important to do more than just teach and preach about it. We need to make it a casual topic in our everyday conversations as much as we can. Every conversation with a teenager is an opportunity to talk about Jesus and how He wants us to treat each other.
I recently talked with a girl who was having problems with another one of our students from our church really being two-faced and ugly to her at school. I reminded this girl that Jesus commanded us to “love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.” I encouraged her to practice extreme grace towards this other girl, using the life and attitude of Jesus as an example. I am not sure that she really wanted to hear that at the moment that she was hurting so badly, but she left with a resolve to love the other girl anyway. I gave her a big hug, reminded her that we are called to live like Jesus, and assured her that I would be praying for her the rest of the week as she tries to work this out.
Our students should become accustomed to being reminded on a regular basis of the kind of people God has called us to be.
3. Ask God to Intercede
If we truly want to see the hearts of our teenagers changed, then we need to take them to the greatest source of love and acceptance in the history of mankind-Jesus. The life and love of Jesus is the perfect embodiment of God’s love poured out for us. Where we can only model a loving attitude, the Holy Spirit can transform their hearts and minds to have the attitude of Jesus and the desire to honor Him in everything they do. Where we can only teach the students about loving one another, the Holy Spirit can actually give them the desire to love one another.
I am convinced that the reason that so many people in the church act just like people in the world is because their hearts have never been transformed by the love of Jesus Christ. Without a saving knowledge of Jesus, the Holy Spirit has no power to transform their hearts and teach them to how to become like Jesus. We need to ask God to invade our youth ministries with His love and to take over. Why keep struggling along under our own power, when we have the power of the living God at our disposal? If we truly desire to see our students loving and accepting one another, we need to turn them over into God’s hands and trust His power to bring this change.
It has been a few weeks since my meeting with these parents, and I know not everything has been resolved to their satisfaction. Just this past Wednesday night I talked with two different high school girls who were upset and disillusioned with our ministry. They felt excluded and had been talked about behind their backs. I could only sit and listen and encourage them to love others in our ministry the way they wanted to be loved. These conversations occurred after our Senior Night service for our graduates…one of our most powerful and encouraging evenings of the year. As I walked out of the building to my car, I silently whispered a prayer for God to accomplish what I could not.
Mark D. Williams is the Family Ministries Lead Pastor at an inter-denominational church in Hendersonville, Tennessee where he lives with his wife Kelley and their seven children.