Young walkers

Duffy Robbins

Have you ever had that sinking feeling that one of the toughest parts of Christian nurture is not getting kids to become Christians, but getting them to be the Christians they've become? A major facet of nurturing teenage discipleship is helping our students to "walk their talk".

Our youth are often good "talkers" but bad "walkers" for a number of reasons. Of course, sin has a little to do with it. After all, flimsy obedience and cheap faith were not invented by the current generation of teenagers. On the other hand, we need to be aware of some factors that make the issue even more cloudy for today's youth:

* Biblical illiteracy. A few years ago, E.D. Hirsch's book, Cultural Literacy (Houghton Mifflin), made waves by arguing that the vast majority of today's high school graduates are virtually illiterate. Hirsch cited an ignorance about the great classics of literature, a limited knowledge of history and almost no knowledge of world geography.

If that scares you, consider that we now have a growing number of teenagers who can't cite all 10 of the Ten Commandments. When our youth lack any sense of biblical landscape, it's no wonder they often confuse a mountain of biblical teaching for a molehill of personal taste. Both inside and outside the church, we have a generation of youth who have virtually no notion of how the Bible guides us in daily moral choices.

* Superficiality. I can recall the feeling of awe that I felt on my wedding day when I began to realize the depth of the commitment I was preparing to make. I had seen this marriage commitment up close in the lives of my own parents. I knew what it meant. I knew that within minutes I was going to solemnly proclaim my "yes" to one particular woman, and that if I really meant "yes" to this woman, it was going to mean saying "no" to every other woman. That's serious commitment!

Because our youth have grown up in a culture that thinks of commitment as any decision lasting beyond sundown, our teens are making superficial commitments to Jesus Christ. They are quite willing to say "yes" to Jesus, but they do not understand that a "yes" to Jesus means saying "no" to anything in our lives that is "not Jesus".

* Lack of authentic models. With the growing amount of publicity given to the moral failures of various well-known Christians, it is increasingly difficult for teenagers to take seriously the gospel's call for righteous living. There is a growing sense of cynicism that everybody preaches that kind of commitment, but nobody lives it out.

More often than not, our youth witness a church that is confused about righteousness and timid about sin. We all know that actions speak louder than words. Obviously, church discipline must always be balanced with grace and forgiveness. But when will our youth get to see a church that exhibits both philadelphia (brotherly love) and hamartophobia (fear of disobedience to God)?

* Wrong views of God. A study of Luke 15:11-27 will show that the unfaithful servant acted as he did because he had a wrong concept of God: "I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man" (verse 21).

In youth ministry today, we are working with teenagers who often labour under one of two false assumptions. One is that God is "a hard man" (Luke 19:21), a God whom we fear and from whom we hide. This is the "Santa Claus" god who's "making his list and checking it twice" because "he's gonna find out who's naughty or nice".

The second false view of God that pervades teen culture is the "George Burns" view of God--sort of a cigar-smoking old geezer who knows that "every now and then, we all want to have a good time, so let's not be so puritanical".

Unfortunately, as we all know, Santa Claus doesn't inspire much genuine year-round obedience. And, as C.S. Lewis reminds us, the latter view gives us not so much a Father in heaven, as a Grandfather in heaven, a senile old gentleman whose major goal at the end of the day is that everyone had a good time.

* Lack of practical teaching. Our kids hear us teaching in vague terms about "loving our neighbour", but they aren't really sure what that means in practical terms. How do I "love my neighbour" when my neighbour asks for my answers on the English exam?

One of the reasons our youth do not live out their faith on a consistent basis is that they lack practical teaching about how to do that. What they need from us is practical help--not nagging--just practical training in righteousness (II Timothy 3:16,17).

A faith that is all talk and no action is, according to James, a faith that is "dead". But God is a God of resurrections. He can use Christian adults who are willing to be authentic models, practical teachers and patient mentors to help teenagers be the Christians they became.

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