Engaging the Soul of Youth Culture - 7

In chapter four, "Welcome to Their Jungle" Walt suggests that there are at least 17 identifiable marks that must be recognized and understood if teachers, youthworkers and parents are going to be able to reach Millennials with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Here are the marks:

Without a moral compass.
Culturally diverse.
Pluralist and tolerant.
Broken relationships.
Media saturated.
Experience and feeling driven.
Suspicious of truth.
Overwhelming options.
Globalized youth culture.
Pervaded by violence.
Pushed, hurried and frazzled.
Materialistic.
Street wise.
Concerned with appearance.
Despairing and hopeless.
Deeply Spiritual.
Crying out for redemption.

What a list! We could take 17 more blogs on each one of these!

Here's the one that stands out in our context - pushed, hurried and frazzled. Here are some random thoughts.

I agree with Walt that in our context students are encouraged to achieve greatness in academics, athletics and physical beauty. Now I am not at all opposed to raising my three children with these three on the list. I want them to make the most out of school. I want them to play sports. I want them to look presentable. I don't want to do it through pushing and hurrying them so they come out frazzled. Sadly, our students aren't just experiencing it in those three areas but in every area: ACT/SAT, work, friendships, family, church, etc...

I think part of the stress in our community is that pushing and hurrying is the drug some of our parents use. The more you push and hurry the better your kids make you look. My kids go to the best school, go to church every Wednesday and Sunday...you name it. My kid is the achiever! The pushing and hurrying is to create the perfect shell of a teenager!

Here's where the pushing and the hurrying lead to in my opinion. It leads to raising a soul-less teenager. It leads to raising a teenager that believes the only thing in life is to perform and then judge other people's performances. It leads to a teenager without a soul. There greatness is only what people can see. Their identity is in keeping up in every area except their soul. Why push when no one can see it?

So how great is their soul? No one knows, because no one will spend enough time to listen. We just want them to look right because we are pushed, hurried and frazzled ourselves. So we end up having soul-less adults raising soul-less teenagers. Man we look good, but we are decaying away if you could just get past the façade.

And we push and hurry in the church too.

I wonder how many of our families are pushing and hurrying spiritual growth? How many youthworkers are pushing and hurrying growth? And is our pushing creating teenagers that have a faith that we can all see but when you open them up they're hollow? Do we know the soul of our students? Can we get past the shell and start seeing the layers like Shrek encouraged us, "Ogar's have layers"?

If we are going to push, lets push them towards being real. If we are going to hurry, lets hurry them to the cross. If they feel frazzled, lets offer them a relationship with a God who says not to worry because he knows the number of hairs on their heads and gives peace that surpasses all understanding.