In the March 2002 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, Ron Powers, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, studies the rising incidence of “acts of lethal violence committed by ‘ordinary’ teenagers from ‘ordinary’ communities”… (The Apocalypse of Adolescence, 58-74).
He noted that on the rare occasions when the kids were asked as to why they were attracted to violent gangs, their answer was: “They saw the gangs as a replacement for something missing in their lives—namely a community that satisfied their longings for worth-proving ritual, meaningful action in the service of a cause, and psychological intimacy.”
Powers concludes his article with some suggestions as to how to help our children:
“Children crave a sense of self-worth. That craving is answered most readily through respectful inclusion: through a reintegration of our young into the intimate circles of family and community life. We must face the fact that having ceased to exploit children as labourers, we now exploit them as consumers. We must find ways to offer them useful functions, tailored to their evolving capacities. Closely allied to this goal is an expanded definition of ‘education’—to embrace an ethic of sustained mentoring that extends from community to personal relationships.”
Surprise, surprise, our kids are just like us. They hunger for self worth, meaningful causes, and for real community. And like us, if they don’t get those things from God, they will get them elsewhere. Eventually, sinful man will seek to meet those hungers through sinful means and that includes violent crime.
Powers’ observations are critical because, in the face of growing teenage crime and drug addiction, the usual response is the imposition of heavier penalties. At best this is only a partial response. At worse it drives the problems underground.
The threat of heavier punishments may control teenage misbehaviour and violence to a degree but it will not address the underlying problems because they do not meet the deep hungers that propel them.
I was particularly struck that Powers’ suggestions to address the problem of violence among teenagers includes a commitment “to embrace an ethic of sustained mentoring that extends from community to personal relationships.”
I don’t have much exposure to youth work but I note that a lot of youth work is based on the big group. Large groups provide a high degree of excitement and energy. The large group is usually led from the front with some combination of exciting speakers and high-octane worship music.
The large group experience is also one of the most anonymous experiences I know. It gives the illusion of community but it is only that — an illusion. And it does nothing for self worth because nobody knows you, not really.
Anonymity suffocates the growth of the spirit. I suspect that the rise of the blogging phenomena, especially among teenagers and young adults, is one reaction to their experience of anonymity. “I blog therefore I am.”
Clearly there can be a lot of energy in large group meetings and young people need to get excited about their faith. Large group meetings are excellent for inspiration and instruction. They help establish group identity. But they are basically anonymous experiences.
Which is why Powers’ suggestion that education must take place in the context of community and personal relationships rings true. Whether in the context of our schools, or in our youth groups, our young need and deserve a personal touch. One size does not fit all.
Unfortunately, few older adults take the trouble to know the young personally. Just watch our language. The young people are “the young people”, “the YF”, “Gen X”, etc., But they are not. They are Jim and Tan and Susan and Siew Mei, and Ravindran and Jose. They are all individual souls.
This will soon become apparent when we take the time to listen to their individual stories. Our God is indeed a God of diversity. Each “young person” has his or her own dreams, strengths, fears, wounds, and personality. And each one of them is waiting for someone who will take them seriously.
Often the world does not. The world lumps them into some marketing segment. Governments too treat the young as a group with certain basic characteristics. For good or for bad, various groups look for ways that can be used to control/guide the young. No wonder the young are often cynical. What is sad is that often the church treats them in the same way.
Today, most churches have some master plan. Often this plan has been forged with no input from the young. Then churches search for those who “know how to connect with young people.” Their job is to help keep the young in line and to get them connected to the master plan. In all this nobody actually sits down to listen to the youth. Nobody knows the cries of their hearts. Or their true earth changing potential. They are just an awkward age group that needs to be managed.
What is worse is when churches compete as to who has a more successful youth ministry by comparing their group sizes. This “my group is bigger than yours” approach is usually carried out in such a way that the individual young person is again lost in the crowd.
Offers of free food, provision of transportation, and exciting hip platform people will normally do the trick for awhile. But in the long run, even the young begin to burn out. Worse they begin to suspect that they have been used. Indeed, it may be instructive to find if such activities really prepare our young people to face the real world. I would like to find out what happens to the products of such ministries when they reach 30.
I have nothing against big group ministries as such but I believe that if we truly want to see the lives of our young people transformed, we need approaches that treat them as individuals.
If Jesus is any guide, we note that He ministers to large groups. But He calls to Himself twelve that He knows by name and enters into deep personal relationships with them.
As Mark 3: 13 ? 19 tells us:
“Afterward Jesus went up on a mountain and called the ones he wanted to go with him. And they came to him. Then he selected twelve of them to be his regular companions, calling them apostles. He sent them out to preach, and he gave them authority to cast out demons. These are the names of the twelve he chose: Simon (he renamed him Peter), James and John (the sons of Zebedee, but Jesus nicknamed them “Sons of Thunder”), Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James (son of Alphaeus), Thaddaeus, Simon (the Zealot), Judas Iscariot (who later betrayed him).” NLT
Here lies your “community that satisfied their longings for worth-proving ritual, meaningful action in the service of a cause, and psychological intimacy.”
Here lies your basic template for life changing education for old and young.
Your brother, Soo-Inn Tan