Old-school mentality

It's been awhile folks, but I'm back! I hope during my brief hiatus that you've been well, but with this week's column I come back in full force. During my away time, several things transpired that led me to write this column. 

It's not a column I ever thought about writing or ever really wanted to write, but I believe, in part, that this platform was given to me by God to pour my heart out over issues that concern me and that people need to be aware of. This week I fully express my opinion, and with all opinions, people will agree, disagree, agree to an extent, and/or understand your perspective but not agree with it. I believe that's how this week's topic will be taken, whether it's admitted or not.

If you get something out of it, please feel free to share it. Or, maybe we can even have a healthy dialogue over it. But again, I thank you for hearing me out on this and all the other topics I've shared in this writing journey of mine. :)

Original publication date: Friday, July 17, 2015
Random Writer
Old-school mentality

Before I headed out for a week as a church youth group camp counselor, I posted on Facebook that I had no idea what the week would hold (which, as a planner, scared me), but my prayer was that each teenager would have an experience with God that could only be explained by Him.

When I arrived home, my Facebook post was that camp was “quite the challenge” and that our teenagers needed to be covered in prayer for their attitudes and behaviors.

So what happened during that week? I’ll do my absolute best not to go into detail, but I want to spend some time addressing the concerns I have with the teenagers in our church and society in general that came from that week. And I’ll do my best to not just gripe about it, but express how we can deal with it and work toward resolving these concerns.

First, we need to be aware that there are some students in our respective ministries that don’t want to be there. They are being forced by a parent or guardian to attend, and those parents and guardians don’t realize or understand or want to understand that this attitude hinders student participation. Beyond that, other students then become aware of this attitude, and it puts a damper on the ministry or program because our groups or ministries are only as strong as the weakest link. Or worse yet, other students who straddle the fence on wanting to participate make the choice to leech onto these poor influences, which leads to more students with bad attitudes or poor behaviors, some of which end up being directed toward other students.

This leads me to another situation. What do we do when a group of students has emerged that has a bad attitude and start displaying bad behaviors? I think we as leaders take the wrong approach by simply “talking it out”. It’s something that society does because the world tries to hide the fact that there are consequences to poor choices. I believe talking it out tells some students that their behavior will be tolerated because the only consequence is a strong verbal reprimand.

I don’t buy the excuses of “kids are kids” or “they acted out just to one-up each other”. Some students are just looking for someone else who acts like them, and when they find it, those attitudes and behaviors grow into negative situations. Thus, the solution is that the students have to be separated. And then from that point, if they still choose (yes, it is a choice) to behave badly and have bad attitudes, I believe dismissal is the next step. We as leaders can’t and shouldn’t have to use all of our time and energy policing the misbehaving students, especially if we have students who actually want to be a part of the program and, even more, if they have a desire to learn about Christ to become more like Him in their daily lives.

Society, and even The Church today, has given kids and people in general so many excuses that allow them to not own up to actions or behaviors. “They come from a bad environment” or “They don’t know any better.” We say that they’re just “rambunctious”--instead of just behaving poorly--because their parents don’t attend church. And at the other end of the spectrum, sometimes we give students whose parents are involved in the church the freedom to misbehave, as if it’s okay because their parents join them for worship.

I can’t continue this discussion without acknowledging my understanding that God can indeed change hearts and mindsets. But going back to one of my points, it is the choice of the person to want to make that positive change in his or her life. He or she has to be open to the call and work of God in his or her life and choose to let God lead their attitudes and behaviors.

Secondly, I know that we have to show the love of God to these students. We have to make every effort on every occasion to let them know that there is a Savior that loved them enough to die on the cross to save their soul from an eternity separated from Him. But we as leaders can’t confuse “showing love” with “allowing them to act however they want” in order to keep them happy or even keep them within our congregations and ministries.

I believe one of the purposes of The Church today, especially in a society where many parents don’t care about their spiritual well-being of their children (or place it solely on student leaders), is to take on that “parental” role, even if we only see them for an average of three hours a week (Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night). During those few hours, we as church members--not just student workers--have to let them know how they are expected to act within The Church. If we as adults in The Church see bad behavior from students, we have to speak the truth in love by calling them out on their wrongdoing and then showing them how to correct their wrongs. And then from that point, if they still continue to choose to have bad attitudes and/or misbehave, I still believe that dismissal is the next option, either on a short-term basis or indefinitely.

We as Christians in today’s society and those of us in The Church might gripe and complain about how bad the kids and teens in today’s society are, but we have to make an effort to resolve the problem if we’re really concerned about this upcoming generation and how they will shape The Church and our country as a whole in the years to come.

I’m not a parent and I haven’t worked with children and teens in The Church as long as many others have, but I’m aware that there are some situations that need to be addressed and have to be resolved for the better. I have an old-school mentality and belief system that many people in general, especially people my own age, don’t have. But it was the old-school mentality that shaped me and raised me, and by the grace of God I think I came out all right. And even though it might be hard at times, if we really want to see a group of young people emerge that demonstrate positive behaviors and attitudes, we’ll take the good aspects of how we were raised and expected how to act and pass that along to the upcoming generation as well.