“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” – Matthew 5:14-16.
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”
- John 15:5
“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world”– John 16:33.
The Challenges Young People Face in the 21st Century
Before answering the questions posed in the first article of this series let’s explore the lay of the land. The land before us is the Western world particularly the American continent, people, and culture in the opening of the 21st century. The geography and map of this culture and century show a great number of features which challenge us.
We could list a dozen problems of society affecting our young people: divorce, abortion, suicide, drugs, violence, and sexual promiscuity and perversion, and list the statistics to demonstrate their pervasive influence. These are however symptoms stemming from a greater disease: the fragmentation of any sort of coherent, ordered, comprehensive worldview. The worldview under the greatest attack is the one rooted in the vision of a living God who has revealed Himself in Scripture and supremely in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Imagine this: not many decades ago one could assume a great deal about the young person you met walking down the street or serving your table at the restaurant. You would likely suppose that their parents were still married or that their “parents” at home were a man and a woman. You might also suppose that the person went to church somewhere in town, perhaps Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, or Disciples of Christ. You might as well have supposed that the young person intended to move out, get a good job, get married, have a family, and buy a nice home.
Today you can assume none of these things. The person you meet may have twice-divorced parents and five, six, or more step-siblings. They may believe in re-incarnation, or Zen Buddhism, or the goddess Gaia, or no god at all. They may believe that it is immoral to eat meat or to believe in absolute truths. They likely believe that science will eventually solve every human problem—including death. The young man you meet may not be intent on dating a young lady, or vice versa.
While we have been sleeping, the universe has moved. The new universe we live in has (at least) four main features: (1) it loathes its own past; (2) despises authority; (3) distrusts certainty; and is (4) youth oriented. Perhaps the greatest relevant feature to our discussion is the great shift in attitudes toward youth.
There were no adolescents in 1930. There were children and adults. Did you know that the word “teenager” was not used in the English language until 1941? I know that’s over 60 years ago but what started then has culminated today with the takeover of culture by youth. With each successive generation, the gap between childhood and adulthood has widened. While young people have learned of “adult” topics at ever younger ages and seem to be maturing physically at younger ages, they have not reached emotional and relational maturity until much later. Of course, not all of these trends are necessarily bad and simply parallel other trajectories such as the huge leap in life expectancy in the 20th century.
Nevertheless this trend has many troubling side-effects such as the resistance of young people to tackle responsibility, to enjoy learning, to respect authority, and to hold jobs. Instead the trend is to avoid difficulty, run from confrontation, avoid mental exertion, willfully oppose direction, and spend much of the time entertaining themselves. Many things are assumed today that were simply not assumed by previous generations. For instance, many accept that young people will go thru “phases” such as rebellion or sexual exploration. The common statement is, “Oh, it’s just a phase,” or, “kids will be kids.” Actually these are not givens at all but expectations we’ve made, not the way it must be.
As the category of teenager and youth has expanded, the culture has essentially been taken over by its focus on youth. The demands of that age bracket drive marketing, advertisement, music, entertainment, clothing, fashion, and sports. In our culture it is a given that youth culture is different than adult culture. Adults have their music, young people have theirs. Adults have their entertainment; young people have theirs, so on and so forth.
Access to this culture is nearly impossible to prevent. In our past we thought that keeping televisions out of our homes would eliminate the threat, but we underestimated our enemy and misunderstood the location of the problem. The computer, the Internet, the iPod, gaming systems, and the cell phone on the one hand and the modern shopping mall, super department store, suburban sprawl, and restaurants on the other have destroyed our ability to draw pristine, impenetrable boundaries around ourselves. These artifacts of culture have entered our lives for our convenience and enjoyment but have become avenues for the subtle and not-so-subtle dissolving of what we hold true and desire to pass on.
Exposure to the culture and to the withering attack upon the Christian worldview is not limited to these things however. It is brought directly into the home and family with great destructive effects. Hear what James Sire says:
“Consider the problem of growing up today. Baby Jane, a twentieth- and twenty-first-century child of the Western world, often gets reality defined in two widely divergent forms—her mother’s and father’s. Then if the family breaks apart, the court may enter with a third definition of human reality. This poses a distinct problem for deciding what the shape of the world actually is.” (The Universe Next Door, 24).
These deadly effects have been wrought by the destruction of an authority structure in the home, the competition between husbands and wives to succeed, the lack of desire of parents to learn how to raise children or spend time with them, the seduction of promiscuity, and the ease of quitting marriage. The child’s heart is not only broken but the hope of an ordered, stable life is gone. Their view of the world is forever personally fragmented between the various parties now vying for influence.
Then consider the public school or university. Neither provides an ordered or comprehensive education in viewing the world. Indeed, the student may be exposed to as many different views of the world as teachers they sit under. Nothing hinders a professor from imposing their own concepts and ideas boldly into the classroom so long as they are not Christian. Into the classroom come strongly and significantly three features mentioned above: (1) hatred of our past; (2) the despising of authority; and (3) distrust of certainty. History becomes an exercise in reveling in the hypocrisies of our past leaders and heroes. The reigning scientific theories teach them that they are little more than biological machines. Study of government focuses on their personal rights and privileges. In the study of ideas, not only are nearly all views presented as worth hearing out, they are also considered equally valid. In other words, the individual can decide what is true for them. The only sin is to tell someone else they are wrong. So young people tend to view religious, philosophical, and political ideas as a great smorgasbord from which they can select various components and build their own collage of personal truth. The result is that at graduation students may know a lot of information about science, mathematics, English, literature, and history but they have nothing resembling a coherent view of reality.
Out of these various shifts comes most everything else we could list. The breakup of authority in the home is mirrored in the breakup of social authorities. If mothers and fathers cannot lead homes, how will teachers be able to lead classrooms? The disintegration of education is reflected in the demand for personal autonomy and right to express one’s self. If there is no “real” reality, then what is there but to impose my own? The reduction of life to biological processes is reflected in the cheapening of human life. If we are nothing but biological tissue what then is wrong with ending an unwanted “pregnancy”? The focus on youth and entertainment culminate in personal hedonism. If it feels good why should I not do it so long as I don’t hurt others?
Folks, we’re not in Kansas anymore.
The Challenges Youth Ministers face in the 21st Century
The challenges young people face compound the challenge to minister to young people in the 21st century. Briefly, among the challenges are the following.
1. To speak with authority into a world submersed in personal autonomy.
2. To keep the attention of an audience over-entertained more than any previous generation.
3. To present absolute truth and reality when education and culture imbibe suspicion of anything absolute.
4. To present certainties and absolutes when personal lives are destroyed by hypocrisy and broken promises.
5. To teach students from widely diverse backgrounds.
6. To be discerning concerning culture and cultural artifacts (computer, TV, cars, radio, iPods, clothing, etc.) and their positive and negative use.
These are great challenges and challenges not only for youth pastors and leaders but for parents, Sunday School teachers, and pastors in general. Perhaps the greatest challenge is to not mistake our enemy. Our real enemy is personal and deceptive. It is not culture itself. There is good culture and bad culture. We should not assume that by keeping bad culture out we can save young people. Nor should we assume that we can fight bad culture by merely promoting good culture. No, the issues are much deeper.
We must realize that the breaking up of the old world and the coming of the new one has been a long time coming. We must also not be blind to the real causes. This new universe we’ve been discussing is the result of more than the collision of new ideas, but is also the foreground of a great spiritual battle. How different is it that our present cultural attitude hates its own historical traditions and heritages than a son who passionately desires not to be like his father? Or how different is our societal rebellion against structure different from a daughter who dresses so as to enrage her mother? If we know who and what our enemies are we should not be surprised. The issues of the human heart are reflected in the heart of society. So it is not quite right to put full blame on any party that may come to mind such as culture itself, parents, or young people. We must keep this in mind as we reflect on cultural trends and societal problems; there is an enemy lurking within us all (our sin) and around us all (Satan).
Knowing these things we must respond appropriately. The only appropriate response is to seek the face of God and His ways. Faced with such great challenges, only one who has overcome the world can show us the way.
The Opportunities Before Us
Are the challenges before us much greater than those facing previous generations? I’m really not sure. While we stand cursing our present culture for its promiscuity and perverseness let’s not forget that the great sin of prejudice marred American culture in past generations. Just fifty years ago a black man in Birmingham could not drink from the same water fountain as a white man. It also seems naive to assume that promiscuity and perversity have not simmered just below the surface of nearly all human cultures and societies. God hates sexual promiscuity and racial prejudice. Our generation is in sin and past generations were in sin.
Think of ancient generations of Christians that feared for their lives, quite aware that calling Jesus Lord may bring about their own deaths. Most of us have never felt that fear. We are blessed in ways we take for granted.
Every challenge mentioned has this one promising side: God can overcome them all. God and His Word are the concrete answers to every challenge listed above. The greater the darkness, the brighter the light may shine. Out of ashes, beauty can come forth. Where sin now abounds, grace can flow and transform. The contemporary situation forces us to lean and trust in what God can do and not what we can construct. God can change the human heart and He can defeat our Enemy, in fact, He already has. His Word can speak into confusion and error and bring conviction and truth by the authority of God Himself. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. There would be no hope for what any of us are doing in ministry.
The challenges then are responded by determining to work along such lines as:
1. To know and surrender to God and His Word and allow His personal authority to speak thru our leadership and teaching to young people.
2. To present truth to young people based solidly and clearly on God’s Word and not on our tradition and opinions.
3. To focus young people on the living God in all His awesome glory and beauty not by competing with the entertainment culture.
4. To lead young people into an experience of God and His Spirit and give them a sense of God Himself rather than the bare word and exhortation alone.
5. To strive to teach by humble example as well as bold word.
6. To accept diversity of backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures, and situations from which young people come as desired by God and for His greater glory, not by attempting to conform all young people to any other mold but Jesus Christ.
7. To respond to youth culture by shaping our views by Scripture and being led by the Spirit, not by reacting from our own personal preferences and prejudices.
8. To seek the creativity and wisdom of the Spirit in thoughtfully using every means possible to minister relevantly and relationally to young people.
9. To speak to the personal heart and mind of individual young people, not ignorantly blame secondary causes alone such as entertainment, culture, and education.
10. To live so joyfully, peacefully, and confidently in God before young people that our very lives provide a compelling case for the truth of Christianity.
So what if we would consider what lies before us as opportunities rather than obstacles? This turns the tables on our enemy. Let’s do things God’s way and let Him have His way with us and He will make us overcomers. I’m convinced that God-consumed, Scripture-molded, Spirit-directed pastors, youth leaders, teachers, and parents are God’s answer to the challenge of youth ministry today.
No comments:
Post a Comment