What the church communicates as important
If you’ve worked with teens in church for any length of time, perhaps you’ve heard someone say they following to you…
“Those teens keep talking during church!”
“They were passing notes during the sermon!”
“Can’t you get those teens to come in from the foyer and sit in the pews?”
“Did you see how those kids dress? Why can’t they wear more church appropriate clothing?”
“The teens were causing trouble after Sunday School. Make sure they behave right!”
Likely you’ve heard something from well meaning (or less well meaning in some cases) individuals in your church. They look at your teens, see the outward behavior, and make judgments regarding them. The desire is to make the outward actions “Christian.” If the outward is clean, then we’ve been successful. The old “cluckers” aren’t the only ones guilty of this. We’re often guilty of this as well. We look at the outward behavior and pick out the “true Christians” from the “problem kids.” We reinforce this by commending the outward behavior – singing, praying in public, correct answers or rule following – and punishing bad behavior – talking, bad attitudes, wrong answers, etc.
The problem with focusing on the outside is that we communicate that behavior is the important thing. If they’re able to “act the part” then they’re good to go. We ignore the inside transformation – to our student’s peril.
Its hard to ignore outward behavior, because it is behavior is often a reflection of the inward reality. But don’t ignore the inner person. When you teach, talk about how it affects both outer and inner. When you compliment students, be sure to acknowledge the aspects of inner development you’ve seen as well as the outer behavior. And when others start to say, “Why don’t those teens…?” you say, “Yes, but they’re really loving Jesus and doing such and such.”
How do you recognize and reward inner growth in your teens?
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By Blogsdna
If you’ve worked with teens in church for any length of time, perhaps you’ve heard someone say they following to you…
“Those teens keep talking during church!”
“They were passing notes during the sermon!”
“Can’t you get those teens to come in from the foyer and sit in the pews?”
“Did you see how those kids dress? Why can’t they wear more church appropriate clothing?”
“The teens were causing trouble after Sunday School. Make sure they behave right!”
Likely you’ve heard something from well meaning (or less well meaning in some cases) individuals in your church. They look at your teens, see the outward behavior, and make judgments regarding them. The desire is to make the outward actions “Christian.” If the outward is clean, then we’ve been successful. The old “cluckers” aren’t the only ones guilty of this. We’re often guilty of this as well. We look at the outward behavior and pick out the “true Christians” from the “problem kids.” We reinforce this by commending the outward behavior – singing, praying in public, correct answers or rule following – and punishing bad behavior – talking, bad attitudes, wrong answers, etc.
The problem with focusing on the outside is that we communicate that behavior is the important thing. If they’re able to “act the part” then they’re good to go. We ignore the inside transformation – to our student’s peril.
Its hard to ignore outward behavior, because it is behavior is often a reflection of the inward reality. But don’t ignore the inner person. When you teach, talk about how it affects both outer and inner. When you compliment students, be sure to acknowledge the aspects of inner development you’ve seen as well as the outer behavior. And when others start to say, “Why don’t those teens…?” you say, “Yes, but they’re really loving Jesus and doing such and such.”
How do you recognize and reward inner growth in your teens?
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I got asked this question the other day – “What do teenagers want in a church?” It’s a tough que ...
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This is an excellent post.
"The desire is to make the outward actions “Christian.” If the outward is clean, then we’ve been successful."
Often, these outward things look nothing like Christ, rather, we equate successful american sub-culture (success, marriage, etc) with being christian. I think that it really comes down to this, because we are not inwardly clean, because we do not love as we ought, do not serve as we ought, are not humble like Christ, all we have is the external trappings: prayer, bible reading, dress code, etc. Those are easier to manage than the inward REAL change, so we project them on to others.
Your second thought about how we might propagate this by elevating the "leaders" in the group is spot on. I need to consider how I do this in my own ministry.
Thanks for the comment. You’re right that the outward things rarely look like Christ. They’re easier to “manage” as you say but Jesus never tried to or intended to manage us. Good comment, if you figure out how to make this work in youth ministry let me know.