Have youth workers become too good at ‘conjuring’ God up?

One of the most essential things that we can do for a young person is help them take responsibility over their own faith. The problem, however, due in no small part to our hero complexes, is we can be more inclined to make our faith their faith.

Our job is not to conjure God up in the lives of young people, our job is to point them to God and then get out of the way. One of the only things we see the apostle Philip doing in the Gospels is just bringing people to Jesus. He then disappears from the narrative and Jesus takes over.

Eli, in the calling of Samuel (1 Sam. 3), saw where God was at work in the life of young Samuel, named it, gave Samuel some help to understand it, and then went back to bed – leaving Samuel and God to get on with it.

Sometimes I worry that our relentless pursuit for ‘relevancy’ means we make the gospel too palatable and faith too fickle. The result is young Christians whose faith becomes largely dependent on us and the projects we create for them. When we leave, or when they outgrow the projects, it’s all too common for young people to outgrow this dependant faith at the same time.

Some of the answer to this is found in integrating young people into the life of the church much sooner, helping them become active participants in the community of faith. I think, however, that in order to address this issue properly, we need to go deeper than this. We first need to address our attitudes towards young people.

Reactive youth ministry

I think our projects, our teaching, and our resources, (and even our job descriptions) are far too often reactive rather than proactive. Like all things reactive, they react out of fear. If we fear that young people aren’t coming to church, we might change things reactively to get them to come. If we fear that our young people might lose their faith, will teach them reactively in the hope of gaffer-taping our faith to them. If we fear they aren’t responding to God in worship, we might turn down the lights down or up the volume. If we fear they aren’t responding to our ‘altar calls’ we might chip away at the call until its broad enough that someone’ll stand up.

So, let’s ask the question honestly: Are we scared for our young people’s faith?

When young people don’t look like they’re responding in worship, or don’t put their hands up during a response time, how do you feel about it? Are you upset, afraid, desperate, embarrassed, guilty? Or are you, confident in the work God has given you to do, happy that these young people are able to make their own decisions about how, when, and if, this stuff becomes part of their lives.

Young people need to be given responsibility over their own faith. We’re there to facilitate that faith, introduce them to Jesus, and help them understand what that means, but it’s their job to maintain their own relationship with Him. We cannot do this for them.

Shifting the assumptions

A young person’s relationship with Jesus belongs to that young person. We can instruct, advise, point, and help shape, but we can’t live their relationships for them, or – even worse – try to create it for them. It’s the same with marriage. I can model a healthy relationship with my wife to a young couple, but our unique relationship cannot be the blueprint for theirs. If every time they make a relationship decision by referring to us, they won’t grow their own intimacy, communication habits, or even create their own formational memories.

So, what do you do that helps a young person relate to God for themselves? When a young person asks you a question about their life, for instance, have you ever responded with something like ‘what did God say when you asked Him?’ That is an important example of shifting responsibility. It’s not that you don’t answer, but you begin with clearly assuming and communicating that their relationship with God is the key.

So slow down! Making a life-defining decision to follow Jesus, and then live that out for the rest of our lives is no little thing. It’s not, contrary to popular opinion, something that can always be decided in the moment after three songs, an empathetic talk, and an altar call.

I’d rather a young person took ten years to work it out, had times away, and seasons of searching, and then stuck at it, rather than recommitting to God every year at camp, without ever really growing in maturity until they leave it all behind at age 18.

Let’s give young people the respect they need by allowing them the space for the responsibility required for a lifetime of faith.

It will also help us sleep sounder, last longer, and live better, knowing that God’s got this – our job is to point, love, encourage, and then get out of the way.

Photo by Dollar Gill on Unsplash