Is it always the Teens Fault?

How do you motivate teenagers? That is a very hard question to answer, and it is very possible that there is no one way to answer it. Yet as an individual who works with youth I feel it is an important subject to discuss.

Yesterday I began by looking briefly at the two different methods of motivating young people in the Church today. The first is basically to demand that they do whatever Scripture says without any discussion. The second challenges us to love them and earn their respect. In time the respect will cause them to obey our teaching.

Both of these methods are a bit flawed in my personal opinion. The first is much better because Scripture is used prominently, but it lacks love or grace. The other uses huge amounts of love with little Scripture or confrontation. It is important that we find a view of motivation which combines the best of both methods.

Before we begin talking about that though there is one very important truth to get across. That being, it isn’t always the teens fault. In other words, if there is a problem motivating individuals, all of the blame usually can’t be placed upon those youth.

Now granted there are some young people in youth groups who honestly don’t care about God at all. But most of the time there aren’t any overly rebellious kids. And since all of the blame usually shouldn’t be placed upon them, where should it go? That’s right, on the people who teach them.

One of the most powerful influences on a teenagers life is our expectations of them. These are the things that we expect them to do (bring a Bible to Church on Wednesday night, don’t use the Lords name in vain). If we place very high expectations upon them then they will rise to meet those requirements. But if we set very low ones the youth will meet those as well.

One thing I have noticed over the years in my ministry is that I many times have placed too low expectations on the youth I work with. It comes from the idea that teens are always going to be immature and unable to live up to high standards before graduating from High School. This philosophy is discussed thoroughly (and proven wrong) in the book “Do Hard Things” by Alex and Brett Harris.

When we place low expectations on youth then that makes us part of the problem. This is illustrated by a story told by Pastor Andy Stanley at a leadership conference. He was talking about having a problem getting his two sons to take the trash bins back to the house on trash days.

His house was at the top of a hill so going down to get the bins and bringing them back up became a task that Mr. Stanley’s sons obviously didn’t look forward to. So on trash days it became a weekly ritual for Andy to tell his sons four times that the needed to go get the trash bins.

He recounts coming home one day to find the bins had not been taken in and becoming angry. But then he realized that he was partly to blame for what had happened. Every week this pastor would tell his sons four times to get the trash before actually getting serious enough to threaten them with discipline. By doing this he basically trained his sons to believe that Dad really didn’t mean it until he says get the trash bins for the fourth time.

Realizing he had had placed low expectations on his sons Stanley decided to do things differently. He took both of the bins up by himself without saying anything to his sons. One of them saw him doing this and asked why he had decided to complete their job. “No reason it just needed to be done” he replied. He then said, “oh by the way, I get your allowance this week”. He never had a problem with their not taking in the trash bin again.

It is true that some of the motivation problems are the result of immaturity or rebellion in the hearts of young people. But perhaps it is necessary to take a long hard look at ourselves before pointing an accusing finger at them.