Being in a Culture of Doers

I remember a local pastor telling me one time that we spend so much time teaching about God, His kingdom, and the love He promises that we forget how to receive any of them. As youth leaders, we’re busy convincing others about the mercy and compassion and excess of God’s grace, but can sometimes live like His ability to be gracious and kind and good is dependant on our program or ministry or teaching or worship. At our worst, we can lose the very thing we, and the students we lead, were created to do: simply enjoy God.

I wonder if our youth group doesn’t sometimes become like most other communities in students’ lives, approaching them with an agenda (albeit the good news of God) for their life. It’s no wonder the Barna group’s study of Mosaics and Busters (young people ages 16-29) revealed that only 3% had a good impression of Evangelical Christians (The Barna Group’s David Kinnaman wrote a book called UnChristian in 2008, where he and his research team asked American young people what they really though about Christianity). That’s 3 out of 100 young people. And some they interviewed were Christians!

Three young ladies sat across the lawn from me, two in tears, as they shared about the pressure to perform and the guilt they experienced when they weren’t able to meet all the demands of the people around them. This fear of letting others down spilled over from their inability to meet the complexity of demands placed on them. Yes, they felt bad when they missed youth group and when they performed poorly on an assignment, but they also had a nagging sense that God needed more from them. Like everyone else, He was unsatisfied with their behavior, attitudes, and performance – you can imagine what that does to a relationship.

As I’ve reflected on this conversation, I wonder if we don’t often obsess about moving students to the next thing so that they can grow and in the meantime miss out on offering them opportunities to listen to the Spirit of God within them. When do we give them space to rest from the need to perform and instead offer them space to practice being children of God? I wonder if students would have a different impression of Christians whose agenda was to help others experience this reality rightly.

What if we take everyone out for coffee or ice cream and then go to hang out at a park? Tell stories. Pray. Spend a little time in silence. Ask about each other’s lives and days. As leaders, offer some structure in the form of well thought out questions, but don’t forget that the structure’s not the point. As clearly as we can, encourage students to receive the night as a gift from God and encourage them to rest from the need to do anything.

At the end of the night, ask students how it went. We might be surprised at how much we’ve been getting in the way.