{"id":1538,"date":"2019-08-18T17:18:50","date_gmt":"2019-08-18T21:18:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/dean-hess\/?p=1538"},"modified":"2019-08-18T22:17:10","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T02:17:10","slug":"where-are-todays-leader-youth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/dean-hess\/2019\/08\/18\/where-are-todays-leader-youth\/","title":{"rendered":"Where are Today’s Leader Youth?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When I was young (and dinosaurs still walked the Earth according to my kids<\/em>), our youth group planned and carried out our weekend retreats and all of our youth events. For several years we built and entered floats in the local parade to reach out to the community. Another youth group in our area put on a music festival with bands like the Newsboys coming. As I look back on that, I think, \u201cWow, that was kind of crazy that we did all of that!\u201d Yes, our youth leaders helped with the legal and \u201cadult\u201d side of things that we couldn\u2019t do, but they gave us a lot of responsibility. As a result, five of us are in full-time missions today<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward to today, and it is difficult to get teenagers\nto show up for youth on Sunday mornings. As we consider today\u2019s youth, how do\nwe get them involved in God\u2019s great mission to see every nation, tribe and tongue\nhear of His great love? It is an overwhelming task and we must seek God\u2019s\nguidance to coach our youth to be then next generation of leaders. I don\u2019t have\nthe answers, but as I look back on things, there are a few things that stand\nout in my mind (I am sure there are many more):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young adults:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our youth leader never allowed us to refer to ourselves as teenagers. He told us that when we turn thirteen, we become adults. We may not always act like it or have the privileges of an adult, but we were adults. If we expect youth to act like immature kids, they will live up to that expectation all the time. Young adults are simply youth in preparation for adulthood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Planning:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of each year, our youth leader would ask\nus, \u201cWhat do you want to do this year?\u201d We would suggest an activity and he\nwould ask, \u201cWhat day are you going? How will you get there? How much will it\ncost?\u201d For each event, we decided where we would go, how we would get there,\nwhat we would do when we got there, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My eldest daughter was sharing how the kids at her school\nwere not motivated to participate in the plays, or fundraisers for their trips,\netc. I asked her why she thought it was that way. She replied that if they\ncould actually choose what play they did, or had a choice in what fundraisers\nthey did, they would be more motivated to participate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thinking: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our youth leader told us that if we are going to be leaders,\nwe must learn how to think. We would have Bible debates on things like\nChristian rock, dancing, and capital punishment. If we want teenagers to be\nleaders, we have to train them to have a civil discourse as they think through\nthe issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only do we need to teach teenagers to think about the issues,\nwe must teach them to identify the primary assumptions that those issues are\nbased upon. Every idea or belief is based on an assumption. What are those\nassumptions? Are they valid? They will certainly not be taught to think and\nevaluate assumptions in school, not even Christian school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Responsibility:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember having planning meetings and our youth leaders were not there. One of the parents of one of our members was shocked that it was just us youth there to plan. Our youth leader said,\u201d If I can\u2019t trust you to plan something on your own, how can you be the leaders of the future?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Failing: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we are going to give our teenagers responsibility, we also need let them fail. I had my young daughter breaking eggs for me this morning, and I was getting frustrated because she was making a mess all over the counter. The Lord smote my heart on that- if I do not let her make a mess, she will never learn how to break an egg. If we do not give enough responsibility to fail, they will never learn how to lead. Scary, I know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we want to raise up the next generation of leaders for\nthe mission field, we have to consider changing how we are coaching them to be leaders\ntoday. As the CEO of Chic-fil-a said, \u201cGood workers are not found, they are\ntrained.\u201d We do not need to go looking for today\u2019s leader youth, we must allow\nGod to use us to train them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was young (and dinosaurs still walked the Earth according to my kids), our youth group planned and carried out our weekend retreats and all of our youth events. For several years we built and entered floats in the local parade to reach out to the community. Another youth group in our area put […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":249,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1538","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ministry","7":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/dean-hess\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/dean-hess\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/dean-hess\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/dean-hess\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/249"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/dean-hess\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/dean-hess\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/dean-hess\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/dean-hess\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/dean-hess\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}