Feeding the Child, Not the Adult

How much are Jr. High youth able to handle? Do we give them credit where credit is due? We have been working on a series with the Jr. High youth that talks about what God is like. Each week we look at another facet of God's personality and the kinds of things He is or does. For instance we talked about how God is an inventor, a rescue worker, a servant, etc. Each week we do different activities that focus on what this means and that it is important to do these kinds of things ourselves.

The further we go into the series the more i realize how little substance there is in it. For instance this week i am leading and the for the topic there are two verses used for support. Neither verse is even considered in context, and one of them is actually taken almost completely out of context. It seems like the series is dumbed down to it's simplest possible elements and then bottle fed to someone who has been bottle fed all their lives. To me, it's no wonder Jr. High youth don't practice what they learn, they've heard the same thing for 11 years. It goes in one ear and out the other.

Quite honestly, i think that this is not just a problem in the Sunday School series we are using right now. I think that this is just an example of how we (as a nation and society) view our youth. They have the ability to do and be so much, but they are not challenged. They are relegated to the title of kid. Looked on and treated as kids, they are expected to act that way and as a result, they do. Meanwhile their untapped potential exceeds the bounds of our imagination. So what do we do now?