In youth ministry, one of the hardest things I’ve had to experience is leading students into a growing relationship with Jesus, while their parents are doing the opposite. In a lot of cases, the parent wants the best for his/her teenager. It’s just that their definition of “best” might not match up with mine. There are some hard-and-fast rules to engage if you don’t want your teenager to care about God. The following are just a few.
1. Make sure their extra-curricular activities are priority over church. You should always make sure that their scholarships are intact, and that they don’t get kicked off the team. That’s definitely more important than their relationship with Christ and eternity, for that matter.
2. When your teenager screws up, ground them from church. Of course! If they don’t care that you take away their TV, cell phone, or friend time, hit them where it hurts. Take away church. Yeah — that oughta do it.
3. Don’t call them out when they need guidance. Always let them make their own mistakes. And if they’re about to do something super-destructive, it’s probably best that they learn on their own. Because learning it the hard way is always the necessary path, right?
4. Talk negatively about your church staff around your teenager. If your pastor messes up, make sure that you call a family meeting to roast him. You should definitely let your teenager know that people can’t be trusted, especially incompetent church leaders. Your teenager needs to know that trusting church leaders isn’t smart! If they don’t trust church leaders, there’s a small chance they’ll ever accept God’s direction in their life. And that’s the safer way to live.
5. Don’t model real faith. At the end of the day, the last thing you want to do, if you want your teenager to ignore God’s voice, is to follow it yourself.
Please know my heart on this issue. We parents need to be leading our families to Jesus every chance we get. Maybe it’s time to take inventory of who or what we’re actually leading our families to.
After all, actions speak louder than words.
Mark Cox is the Student Pastor at Indian Springs Baptist Church. Stalk him at his blog www.thinknextnow.com or on Twitter @markhcox.
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Josh Griffin has been in youth ministry for 15+ years and serves as the High School Pastor at Saddleback Church. [
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Geoff Stewart serves the Jr / Sr High School Pastor at Peace Portal Alliance Church in Surrey B.C.
Your words are absolutely correct! Although a tad dfficult to swallow, right on the mark! I have found that when I make a mistake, I TELL my children I did (and allow THEM the opportunity to show grace – just like me!). Parents have so much more time with their children, we MUST model the way! Thanks for your honesty (our virtue in Children’s ministry this month!).
I think your advice is “correct” but your tone is a little aggressive. We can’t expect non-Christian parents to value youth ministry as much as we do so the tougher issue is how to partner with them despite their miscalculated actions.
@Jason. Correct that it is a little abrasive. But most times, I don’t really see a lot of distinction between the Non-Christian Parents and the Christian Parents….. especially #1
would you object to me linking this article on my blog?
@Theresa – Way to model humility to your kids! That’s awesome!
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@Jason – Understood. My sarcasm gets me in trouble sometimes
@Brent – True story.
@Josh – No worries. Links to my blog (www.thinknextnow.com) would be appreciated
So – you say – “Please know my heart” – but your tone is down right rude. If I were a parent of a teen in your ministry, I would wonder how much you’d “partner” with me vs. siding with my teen that I’m “officially lame.” You may not agree with the decisions parents make. You may even want to provide some healthy and helpful critique – but when your tone is accusatory vs. constructive, that doesn’t lend to a partnering relationship.
#1 – Extra-curricular activities are important. They are important to teens socialization, and with the price of college going up every year, a scholoarship is nothing to sneeze at. What is your suggestion here?
#3 – Some kids HAVE to learn it the hard way. Always letting them make their own mistakes is excessive, but never allowing them to work their way through failure is just as destructive.
#5 – What’s “real” faith?
If I’m taking you more seriously than you intended, I apologize. There does seem to be a trend with YM today to bash the parents instead of partnering with the parents, and I find that disturbing.
Chyrisitna, I’m pretty sure the intent wasn’t to sound rude. My guess is that the tone was intended to make a point. The reality is that this is a very serious problem in youth ministry. I encounter the same problem with our youth ministry here in the Cleveland area. It is important to remember that the goal for the parents and the youth ministers is the same – love the kids in the best way we know how and prepare them for life. Here is some clarification that I think might prove helpful:
1. Extra-curricular activities are important. Kids should have them. College is important and paying for college is often an uphill battle, but it isn’t a matter of these activities being important. It is a matter of priority. Kids need to learn that Christ should be first in their lives. Soccer practice, Scouts, band, and music lessons should be worked around the programs that make church relevant to your child’s life. Otherwise, how are they supposed to be fed spiritually? Do the lessons, sports, and other activities, but make Church a priority.
2. Kids need guidance. You are right, sometimes kids need to learn the hard way, but I don’t think this article was saying to shelter your kids entirely. It was, rather, a warning to the opposite issue – never sheltering your kids. That is irresponsible.
3. “Real faith” is believing that Jesus is Lord. It is believing that he died for your sin so that you could be in relationship with God. It is living a life everyday that has relationship with God. It is not being perfect, but it is walking with God in daily decisions and events to the best of your ability, because whether we realize it or not God is a part of our everyday life. The point this article made was that too often parents go to church on Sunday and forget about God until the following week. This isn’t all parents, of course, but enough to make it a conflict at times with what youth pastors try to teach their kids.
I hope this is helpful.
Chyrisitna,
Sorry I am just seeing this for the first time. I’m not tech-savvy enough to be able to subscribe to the comments so that I see them immediately, but here are my thoughts.
I understand your thoughts completely, and even agree with them to a certain extent. In my region (central Arkansas), we sit in the fat of the Bible Belt, in which everyone is a Christian, or at least thinks they are. My tone is extreme on purpose – that purpose is to help wake people up. If it makes people angry, I’d at least appreciate that they start thinking critically on some of these issues. I’m not a stranger to apologies, and I’ll make them when necessary. However, my intent is never to show students how lame their parents are. That’s not the case. The target of my post is to help parents see that some of their actions are having negative effects on their childrens’ spiritual lives. I’ll dive into answering your questions…
1. I think David said it best above. My intent isn’t to inspire every student to quit the team. In fact, this past winter, I had a student tell me that they felt they should quit the basketball team, so they could focus on God. My advice to this student was to stay on the team, so he could be an influence, but keep God the priority the whole time. Not to mention, he’s taller than I am (I’m 6’3″) and will most likely be playing college ball. It’s not about what you don’t do. It’s about what our priorities are.
2. I apologize. The sarcasm in my post probably muddied the waters a bit. Our students do need to learn some lessons the hard way. However, the absence of parenting is what I’m referring to. In the Bible Belt, parents tend (not all, but some) to pawn the spiritual direction of their children off on the church. You and I both know that’s unhealthy. A lot of parents aren’t parenting. They’re friending. That’s what I’m referring to.
3. “Real Faith,” as referred to in my article has everything to do with matching your actual commitments to your verbal commitments. When a parent says to a child that they want them to be involved in church, yet they won’t commit themselves, I would call that fake. Craig Groeschel has a new book that just released, called, “A Christian Atheist.” The subtitle goes something like this – “Believing in God but living as if you don’t.” That’s the idea here.
Let me make myself clear. I’m not bashing parents – I really do desire to partner with the family. Sometimes you have to be harsh to get your tone across. That’s the tone I chose. Thanks for calling me out, though. I deserve to be checked up on.