Guidelines for Youth Ministers - I Tim. 4:12-16
Illustration:Statistics and Stuff
Percentage of American teens who say they want to be like their parents: 39%.
Charis Conn, Ed., What Counts: The Complete Harper’s Index.
Illustration:I’m not much of a gardener. Once I took a seed catalog and started out the door. "Where are you going with that?" my wife asked. "I’m going to show it to my tomatoes," I explained.
Source Unknown.
Today, more than at any other time in history, young people are looking for examples. Youth are looking for direction about many things but especially in the area of character formation. Paul gave Timothy guidelines in this passage for everyone who wants to know how to minister from a youthful perspective. Paul also wants to supply people who are forming their life’s perspective guidelines that will provide stability, well being and a Spirit blessed life pattern. Today we live in a world where most young people get their perspectives from TV, movies or their peers. Young people tend to be idealistic and are looking for ideals that they can set their moral compass with.
Illustration: George Lawton captures many young peoples’ attitudes in his list of guidelines for meeting adolescents’ hopes:
1. Stand by us, not over us
2. Make us feel we are loved and wanted.
3. Train us by being affectionately firm.
4. Bring us up so we will not always need you.
5. Try to be as consistent as possible.
6. Don’t try to make us feel inferior.
7. Say, "Nice work," when we do something really well.
8. Show respect for our wishes even if you disagree with them.
9. Give direct answers to direct questions.
10. Show interest in what we are doing.
11. Treat us as fi we are normal, even when our conduct seems peculiar to you.
12. Teach us by example.
13. Treat each of us as a person in his own right.
14. Dont’ keep us young to long.
15. We need fun and companionship.
16. Make us feel our home belongs to us.
17. Don’t laugh at us when we use the word "love".
18. Treat us as a junior partner in the firm.
19. Make yourself as an adult fit for a child to live with.
20. Prepare us to lead our lives, not yours.
21. Give us the right to a major voice in our lives.
22. Let us make our own mistakes.
23. Permit us the failing of average young people just as we permit you the failings of average parents and youth leaders!
The better a parent or youth worker understands the problems youth face as well as their needs the better they will be able to understand and relate the biblical message to them. By keeping in touch with young people by being a good listening, one can learn to enhance the effectiveness our communication. It all begins by being an example in the following five areas:
1. BE an example in not allowing others to diminish the importance of what you are doing as a parent or as a youth leader. Timothy had to refuse to be discouraged from those who might have thought he was too young or inexperienced to Pastor. People will break our hearts if we let them, but don’t let them. David wrote, "God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in the time of trouble. Therefore we will not fear... for there is a river that makes glad the city of our God." (Psa 46:1,2) When we are feeling inadequate we can draw upon the rivers of living water’s nourishment, adequacy and power that supplies us with whatever we need. Jesus said, "He who believes in me as the scriptures said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water." (John 7:38)
Illustration:Bill Hybels related a story of integrity in Leadership Magazine. It illustrates proper humility in a leader. One evening I stopped by the church just to encourage those who were there rehearsing for the spring musical. I didn’t intent to stay long, so I parked my car next to the entrance. After a few minutes, I ran back to my car and drove home.
The next morning I found a note in my office mailbox. It read: A small thing, but Tuesday night when you came to rehearsal, you parked in the "No Parking" area. A reaction from one of my crew (who did not recognize you after you got out of your car) was, "There’s another jerk in the ’No Parking’ area!" We try hard not to allow people -- even workers -- to park anywhere other than the parking lots. I would appreciate your cooperation, too. It was signed by a member of our maintenance staff.
(This man’s) stock went up in my book because he had the courage to write to me about what could have been a slippage in my character. And he was right on the mark. As I drove up that night, I had thought, I shouldn’t park here, but after all, I am the pastor. That translates: "I’m an exception to the rules." But that employee wouldn’t allow me to sneak down the road labeled "I’m an exception." I’m not the exception to church rules or any of God’s rules. Exemplary conduct means encouraging others to imitate us, even in the small matters.
Paul Borthwick, Leading the Way, Navpress, 1989, pp. 57-58.
2. Be an example in conducting yourself with gravity and prudence that will tend to give you greater respect regardless of your inexperience or deficiencies. Parents and youth leaders will not be despised if they do not disgrace themselves with complacency, indiscipline lifestyles or follies that cause others to disrespect them. Authorities have taught that even though young people may not agree with their parents or youth workers, they will respect them if they know they are committed, serious and focus on doing what they believe God wants them to accomplish. Do not worry if people do not like some things you are doing as long as they respect you for who and what you believe.
Illustration:Illustration of the power of an example:A man’s life is always more forcible than his speech. When men take stock of him they reckon his deeds as dollars and his words as pennies. If his life and doctrine disagree the mass of onlookers accept his practice and reject his preaching.
C.H. Spurgeon.
3. Be an example not only in your teaching but also in your lifestyle. Young people tend to imitate those who are their authorities. Even though you may not think that your young people are listening to you they will value greatly by your steadfast example to truth, love and kingdom priority thinking. Those who teach the scripture must teach it by their passion, processes and patterns. If what we teach is not seen in our lifestyles we are in danger of discrediting all of our teaching and influence.
Illustration:Children who see physical violence between their parents are six times more likely to abuse their own spouses after they marry. If those children were also hit by their parents as teenagers, they are 12 times more likely to abuse their spouses.
Bottom Line, in Homemade, November, 1985.
4. Be an example in your preparations. Those who are working with youth need to do their homework. Paul told Timothy, "Devote yourself to the public reading, to preaching and teaching." ( I tim. 4:13). Prior preparations tend to prevent poor performance. Do not get lax in your self-disciplined preparations. Many people think they can coast on their experiences or their past performances. Do not make this mistake as prayer preparations are essential to let youth know that our preaching is not with persuasive words of wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and power so that their faith will not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. (I Cor. 2:4-6)
5. Be an example in teaching youth what to be, what to do and what to think. Do not hesitate to give youth the biblical ideals that they should aspire toward. We live in a relativistic age. Consider this illustration from Chuck Colson:
Illustration:the stock market is taking a beating as investor
confidence plummets. It’s an ethical crisis, but not surprising.
Recently I met a business school professor whom I greatly admire. He
told me that at his school, there’s no attempt to teach ethics because
the faculty can’t agree on objective standards. He went on to say they
rely on kids to have learned ethics before they get to business school
-- good luck.
Let me mention again the case of Harvard Business School. For years
ethics courses there were pure pragmatism. Then they gave up teaching
ethics, returning twenty million dollars to a friend of mine who had
endowed the ethics course. What they discovered was that without
absolute values, which historically came from the Christian revelation,
they couldn’t teach ethics. I did a quick survey thereafter of other
business schools and found the same thing.
We’re captive to this culture of relativism. There’s no truth, so who
are we to impose our values on anyone else? All anybody can do -- like a
business school teacher -- is help people think through problems and
arrive at their own conclusions while telling them that no conclusion is
any better than any other -- a formula for disaster.
This is what modern worldviews teach. But what happens when you allow
people to arrive at their own moral conclusions? They do what is right
in their own eyes, and we end up with the likes of Enron and WorldCom.
But this is an opportunity for Christians to make an apologetic case
that a free society can’t survive without standards of virtue. And those
standards have always been informed by Christian truth. The secular
elites and a lot of our neighbors tell us we shouldn’t be imposing our
views on others -- okay. But until we recover a sense of absolute moral
truth, we’re going to continue to see scandals, and we’ll also see our
portfolios decline. I wonder if the people will be so eager to dismiss
us as "religious bigots" when they realize that it’s the lack of ethics
in our society caused by the abandonment of a Judeo-Christian consensus
that’s causing them to lose their retirement plans. This ethical crisis
poses a direct threat to the millions of Americans who directly or
indirectly own stock.
Who wants to hear what these Christians believe? I submit that if we
make the case right, it would be anyone who owns stock in a publicly
traded company in America today.
For further reading:
Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, The Christian in Today’s Culture
(Tyndale House, 1999).
6. Be an example in not being negligent of your main responsibilities. The key guideline to follow in fellowship with youth is, "In necessities, unity; in non-essentials, liberty and in all things, charity." Learn that there are many non-essential aspects about styles of dress, music and fashion that are not worth arguing about. Instead, in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself to be an example. Young people will love you as you remain exemplarary in these five essential aspects of life while giving them freedom in the areas of non-essentials of their culture.
7. BE an example in remembering that your ministry to youth is a gift as well as a God given responsibility, do not take it lightly. Some parents and youth workers become resentful, but they forget that the ministries they have are great gifts from God. Thank God and cherish these few short years that you have to offer yourself as servant to the young people. Whatever you sow that will you also reap.
8. Be an example in being diligent in these matters and with your biblical doctrine. Do not give in to the anything goes mentality that so often dilutes the minds of youth leaders. It is easy to grow tired and weary in well doing when working with youth. REmember, we will reap if we faint not. As you therefore, have opportunity do good, especially to those who are of the household of faith. (Gal. 6:6-8)
9. Be an example in your perseverance as it will save you from a life of self-destructive complacency, introspection and guilt. A godly youth worker and parent will give themselves wholly toward the minstry with youth. This is a way to save yourself from sinking into a life of depressing selfishness. Many people are going into early retirement in our day because they fail to give themselves to young people who have great needs. Paul writes, "Persevere in these things, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers." (I Tim. 4:16) We need to serve or we will tend to just want to serve ourselves. (Mark 10:45) By serving others we will get our eyes off of our own problems and on to the needs of others. Selfishness is a receipe for self-destructive behavior.
Conclusion:A study once disclosed that if both Mom and Dad attend church regularly, 72% of their children remain faithful. If only Dad, 55% remain faithful. If only Mom, 15%. If neither attended regularly, only 6% remain faithful. The statistics speak for themselves--the example of parents and adults is more important than all the efforts of the church and Sunday School.
Warren Mueller in Homemade, May, 1990.
