Let the youths run wild.....

Most of us have at least one story we’d never want Mom and Dad to know about. Something we did that we think is best left between us, some co-conspirator and the fence post.

This cranial hiccup, combined with thoughtless experimentation, strange music and head-shaking fashion fads, causes our culture to assume that during adolescence the human being is borderline ape. Indoctrinated that we are mostly hairless super-primates justifies our belief in, and marketing of, a life stage that resembles a zoo.

Our culture paints adolescence so appealingly hedonistic that now even supposed grown-ups hardly want to leave the land of monkey-business and acne. Perpetual immaturity is the bedrock of goldmine industries: Witness the line-ups of twenty-somethings sleeping on sidewalks outside stores to buy the latest video game that they will take home to play in their parents’ basement. Now, that’s the life! Just think of the bright future for those able to jam on fake guitars or be consumed by vicarious car heists?

We have made teenage-dom just plain dumb. It’s a travesty—a great tragic adventure in shooting ourselves in the foot—because the youths and young adults I know are far from dumb. I wish the broader culture would stop insisting they be so. Even more so, I wish we would stop doing this in the church!

I recall a conversation among adults about baptism. They were wondering whether a young person, repentant of sin, confessing faith in Christ, evidencing the fruit of the Spirit, and seeking to be discipled and make disciples, could be considered a full member of the church before “adulthood.” What an absurd question. Not only does this reveal an unbiblical notion of the church, by leaving spiritual community defined by state classifications, but it disparages the Spirit’s work in a tender life as somehow second-rate. Does God think teens are dumb too? What happened to the faith of a child?

Further, many churches segregate youths from mature adults. We conclude they don’t want to be with the big, boring people. I wonder if this is just an excuse to keep their inquisitive minds from challenging our own shallow discipleship. Fear not, they notice it anyway. So we turn to a few “cool” adults to entertain and keep the “kids” busy, and present to them a hip Jesus who is Orlando Bloom with tattoos. No wonder Jesus’ call to radical, selfless discipleship goes over their heads!
This knee-jerk reaction to the drift of the wider culture is a ministry of fear. Rather than accept the young as co-sinners in need of redemption, as co-apprentices in the footsteps of Jesus, who need a community of believers to train them up, we insist that pizza and fun are the only things they respond to. The fruit of such ministry is, let’s be honest, not that bountiful. Many who came through such programs are happily absent from the church or are some of the most consumerist Christians in history.

Recently, Tom Roes, our pastor to youths and their families, surveyed both adults and youths at Zurich Mennonite. He learned that our teenagers overwhelmingly had a positive view of adults and the church, while the adults overwhelmingly assumed teens were negative about both. It seems adults believe the cultural lies, while youths are seeing through it. Who are the wise ones here? Perhaps it’s time to let the youths run wild so that the rest of us become less tame.