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Youth Blessing Or Curse
In these days many young people are involved in some religious active cults like for example the Moonies and the Mormons, many of them actually had been brought up within the traditional Christian church. But the church never given them real responsibility or a sense of challenge. Now in these cults they found a cause not only to believe in, but to live for, they were respected by others and where their involvement was regarded as important. It is time that the church of today once more begin to capture the imagination of young people which have so much to offer and have a lot of energy, drive, vision and enthusiasm.
If we think that the youth people of today are the church of tomorrow, we only see them as a mean of setting forth the institution, or, that they are not actually a real part of the church today. In fact Christian young people are already part of the church and older church members need to appreciate and accept this fact. Young people are not ‘the church of tomorrow’, they are very much part of the church today. Together Christians both young and old should be working to build the church of tomorrow. It is also not right to focus only upon the youth, we as a church have to find a balance in our approach to our church members.
Also the bible does not see young people as a more important group than any other group of age, or the other way around. Through the bible we see that God uses all age groups to achieve his purposes. For example Jeremiah was known to God while he was still in his mother’s womb. Later, when he protested at being called by God to be a prophet, his excuse was that he was a mere young! But God rejected Jeremiah's objection, making him very clear that He was well able to use a youth person to do His work. On the other hand, Moses was eighty years old when God called him, and Abram was seventy-five. The bible is full of stories where God chooses to use both young and old. Young people are not more exalted in His sight than any other age group. Therefore, while the place of youth work within the church is important, it should never be allowed to become the one dominating factor in the life of the local fellowship. As I said before the church is commissioned to reach adults as well, and to bring both young and old people into the church.
What will happen if we put this out of balance and keeping our focus only on the adults? It will become a down going spiral, ending up in a literally dying church. It is for sure that the young people will leave the church and even if they stay the youth is not able and educated at all to take any responsibility or even to take over the church leaders in the future. If we don’t take the youth serious, and if we do not involve them in our church meetings they will became a curse for the other church members because we just do not know what to do with them. In fact if we involve them in our church meetings, they will become a blessing for the whole church. Like it is written in the bible ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days’ Acts 2:17-18.
Our task as a church toward the young people is to disciple them so that they will disciple others. We just cannot push the young people without any experience into the full responsibility of mature leadership. The young people are still in a stage of learning, if we do not teach them they will never learn and grow, and they will never know how to pass on the knowledge to their youth. In fact the church will never grow spiritually but will always stay on the same (or growing slowly) spiritual level every next generation. In the church of today we invite the best preachers to preach to the adults, actually this should be the other way around. The youth need the best preachers and teachers we can afford. Most of the time the responsibility for the youth has often been pushed on to the shoulders of anyone willing to accept the challenge. I think it is time that the burden is put back where it belongs; with the whole church.
Youth leaders are more or less self appointed (to do the task as leader) and then left on their own without real support from the church. This should never be the case. Youth leaders should be regarded in the same light as anybody else with a responsible teaching role within the church. We should not see the youth work as a nice practice for the ‘real’ job as preacher (or something like that) later on. We just cannot practice, or developing our not full grown skills, on teenagers and use them as testing rabbit. The youth leader is not only in a very influential position but also a very vulnerable one. We have to take youth work serious.
When the church takes this responsibility it will be forced to face practical questions such as:
Far too often youth leaders have labored on against great odds, few manpower, few resources, little training and no real help, support or understanding from their local church, who only shows interest when things go wrong within their youth work.
Good leaders use resources that is available to them and tries to get the best out of the people. But before you lead a team you must think ahead and ask yourself a couple of questions like:
When we take youth work serious in all aspects, we will see good fruit coming out of it. We going to realize that the youth is a real powerful blessing to the whole church. I believe the whole church, both young and old, will get more energy, drive, vision and enthusiasm if they both work together and take each other serious.
P. F. van der Heijden
Halesowen 2001
