We’ve all heard it before. You know. “What’s the matter with youth today?”
No matter the generation, folks have their “tisk, tisk, tisk” commentary. When I was growing up, they shook their heads at kids who wore their hair like Elvis, and dressed like characters from “Grease”. Then came The Beatles, and kids let their hair grow. I don’t even want to talk about Haight Ashbury and the years of “love” and Woodstock. But in every generation there are “those” kind of kids who give all kids a reputation of being like them. The same is true for youth-groups.
In some churches, the youth meet to have fun. They eat, play games and throw in a bit of time for Bible study, then call it “youth ministry”. And to be honest, in every ministry, no matter how spiritually sound, how mission-minded, there are some kids who only come for the pizza and frisbee and social interaction. There are those kids who sit in the church pews texting, passing notes, talking, giggling, and ignoring the pastor as he preaches. There are those kids who are disrespectful and are troublemakers. There are those kids who show up for mission trips so they can get out of town and go to the beach, or visit Disney World in their off-hours of mission work. But not all kids are like “those” kids. And not all youth groups are like “those” groups. And not all youth ministries are like “those” ministries.
A week ago I had the privilege of watching some of our senior youth group living out their faith in community service. It simply highlights many of the things they do within our church. I wrote about their mission ministry at SBC Encounters [here] . I also wrote about them in my weekly column for our county newspaper (you can read a reprint [here] ). I didn’t write about them because they are the only kids in the world doing something good. I wrote about them because very often, just like in other generations, all you ever hear about teenagers is negative stuff. And I wonder if we took time to spotlight the better, more positive things we see them doing, if more kids would be like “these” kids.
What about your youth? What can you say about them? selahV