How subtle shifts in ‘identity culture’ are changing the shape of our youth work

Let’s start with an exercise, which of the following statements do you associate with,

1) when you were a young person yourself,

2) when you first started youth work, or were taught youth work

3) what you teach today:

• ‘You can do anything you want to ’
• ‘You can be anything you want to ’
• ‘You need to discover who you truly are.’
• ‘God has a specific plan for your life.’
• ‘I accept you no matter what.’
• ‘Don’t let anyone tell you what you can/can’t do’
• ‘Don’t let anyone tell you what you can/can’t be’
• ‘Nobody deserves to be ’

Many of these are similar, but there are some interesting differences. When I was a young person, I remember everyone teaching me that God had a plan for my life which I simply needed to find out and walk in. When I began youth work myself, this changed subtly. I taught instead that you could achieve anything, so dream big because you can do anything you want to do. Post-market crash, and with the emergence of Gen Z, this changed again. Identity topics began to have more to do with discovering your ‘true self’, accepting it, and fighting for your right to it.

These three different perspectives have mostly been true in some form across the last few decades, but with different aspects dialled up or down.

The silver bullet

Identity is widely agreed in both Christian and secular youth work as one of the most important topics to cover. It can be the silver bullet to a young person’s ability to grow confidently and healthily. It’s essential, therefore, that we know what it is we’re talking about when we use the word ‘identity’. But do we?

I believe there is a lack of solidity under the ground of this, essential, topic of identity. This crumbly foundation has lead to inconsistency in our resources, and a lack of depth within our lifestyle teaching throughout Christian youth work.

So, here’s my question to youth workers: ‘Do you really know what you mean when you use the word “identity” with young people?’

Usually identity as a topic orbits the ideas of self-actualisation, self-esteem, relationships/community/belonging, love and acceptance, physical safety and security, and physiological needs. We could also explore personality types, gender, race, history, class, additional needs, community structure, education, aspirations, family backgrounds, experiences, and… well a whole lot more. For Christians, we’d add in being created by God, found in Christ, saved by Grace and empowered by the Holy Spirit within faith communities, etc. It’s a broad topic.

A solid foundation, I believe, would begin with the identity of Christ himself, balanced across our supra-cultural traits, then lived out in the world. Without this (or more often reversing this; so starting with your place in the world, then trying to figure out your humanity, then trying to shoe-horn Jesus in afterwards) creates all kinds of mutually-exclusive messages within our teaching.

A complex constant, or constantly complex?

The thing is, identity really is quite complex, and it’s certainly not static. For all of our preaching on ‘finding our true selves’ – as if that was a static treasure hidden inside a proverbial Kinder egg which simply needs unveiling and putting together – in reality our ‘true self’ is immensely fluid and fickle. It changes, legitimately, in different contexts and at different stages of life. So, what do we really mean?

It’s super important that we help to develop healthy, confident, resilient, personable, and able young people, but we do want to take care which assumptions we might be accidently propping up along the way – and how those assumptions will battle each other in the mind of a developing young person.

My contention is we should begin with the identity of Christ (himself, not us), then start working out what it means for us to be in Christ, then explore living out our lives about Christ.

I’ll spend more time on that in another post, but to help us for now define more clearly the extent of our uncertainty on the topic, here’s some abstract questions. My hope is through simply exploring these, and other questions like them, we’ll begin to think a little deeper, and we’ll hone and nuance our thinking about identity. This is a topic that’s worth the effort!

Some thought-experiment questions

1. Does ‘you can be anything you want to be’ mean ‘you can be a helicopter’?
2. Does ‘you can do anything you want to do’ mean you can fly?
3. If you identify as a cat, is it my duty to your health to treat you like one?
4. If you identify as indestructible, would it be inappropriate to stop you jumping off a tall building?
5. If you identify as invisible, and by looking at you I would deeply offend you, should I look at you?
6. If you identify as a nudist, should someone make you put on pants in Starbucks?
7. If you fall out with your family, can you consciously decide they are no longer related to you? Would you expect that to be recognised by others?
8. If you identify as being sick with the flu (without any symptoms or diagnosis) should the doctor write you a sick note so that you can stay off work/school?
9. If your identity produces a threat to others, can I intervene?
10. Is ‘personal identity’ or ‘group identity’ more important? Which should win when both are in tension?
11. What/who should be allowed a say over your identity?
12. When is rejecting behaviour the same as rejecting personhood or identity?
13. When is rejecting personal narrative the same as rejecting personhood or identity?
14. Does ‘discover your true self’ need additional help to grow that into a ‘better self’?
15. How malleable is identity?
16. How much do you expect your identity to change?
17. How is identity linked to maturity? How should one affect the other?
18. Is self-reporting the best way to find self-identity?
19. If you don’t feel loved does that mean you are not loved?
20. Are you always supposed to feel good about everything you are? Would that be the main goal of your identity?
21. Who does your identity belong to?
22. How does sanctification, holiness, sin, transformation, and growth affect a true self?
23. What lines exist between ‘shamming’ and ‘challenge’?
24. Does God have a hyper-specific plan for your life? What happens if you miss it?
25. How does being ‘in Christ’ affect your identity?
26. How does being ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’ affect your identity?
27. When should/shouldn’t you be expected to nuance, yield, change, or remove aspects from your identity?

Some of these are pretty pedantic, and I’m purposely not answering them. We need to work through them ourselves against the backdrop of gospel theology. My point is that we need to tread more carefully as influential youth leaders in order to help young people grow as healthy people who trust in God and know how to navigate life well. There’s far too much inconsistency in how we teach on identity – and it’s too easy to prop up fluffy assumptions and broad sweeping ideologies that just don’t help those young people truly grow.

These subtle distinctions and contradictions, taught at the level of identity, will war with each other inside a young person’s mind into adulthood. Let’s take this seriously, give nuance its day, and deepen our understanding of identity. There are few worthier topics worth this amount of effort to unstick and undergird.

All the best!

Photo by Carson Arias on Unsplash