What do Young People Need?

Our youth and young adults need more than just to be treated as bigger children. They need to be challenged. They need to learn. They need to understand 1) who they are, 2) that they have a purpose & direction, and 3) what that direction and those purposes are. They need to have something to show for their results, something they can hold in their hands. They need something that they can put their name on, grasp ahold of, and make (of) themselves. They need to succeed, and they need to fail. Young men need a question to ask that will consume them, whose answer is so unattainable that they can spend their lives seeking that answer and never reach it. Young women need a love that they reach for that is so much bigger than them, that they reach for it and can never become it.

God has created our young men and young women to be so much more than they are, and to go so much further than where they are being led.

Image from dhammza used under cc license.

Youth: People With a Passion & a Purpose

What is my passion?  This question is so big that it's difficult to answer.  It's like asking the question, "How big is the ocean?".  

My vision is for our society and culture to do a 270 degree turn.  To turn the complete opposite way and then some.  Right now in our culture our youth are treated like children.  They act like children because they are expected to act that way, and they are not trained to do anything else.  Their primary education is done by the government, at the expense of their parents.  At best they are taught to excell in subjects, which is not the same thing as life.  The class generally learns at the rate of the weakest "average" student.  Their primary defining influence is usually 1 person, their teacher.  Many times they are taught the basics reading, writing, arithmatic, and other subjects but have no idea how to do anything with that information.  It is worse than useless information, it is barely useful.  

Meanwhile, for the most part, our youth are not taught how to take care of themselves.  How to succeed in life or find a career that is worth their time and effort.  They are not trained to be men and women.  To be husbands and wives.  They are taught subjects with no knowledge of how to apply that to life outside of the educational system.  As a result we have young adults and adults who leave high-school, undergraduate programs, and graduate programs with no idea as to how to be anything more than students.

Young people find that when they rebell and cause trouble they gain attention, and when they gain attention other people follow them.  Thus by rebelling they become leaders.  They are not taught or challenged to become leaders any other way... wow this is getting long, and i have only scratched the surface.

I guess that you could say that this a round about way of saying that my passion is for youth to become more than they are.  It is a passion and vision to see society, youth, the church, embrace youth and give them a vision for something more than themselves.  To give youth more than just subjects and useless information.  To challenge them to be and become people with a passion and a purpose.

Vision to ... a Jumbled Mess

There are so many things that can be done. There are so many things that need to be done. There is so much work that my mind gets lost just thinking about what is needed to even start (not that it's difficult for my mind to get lost or anything). The obvious starting point is with myself and my own family, but what next. My wife and i are getting more involved with the youth group in our church, and that's a good start. If we want to change the world, it starts with the youth. Also, one of the things that i want to do is to write a book. I have started this many times, but cannot come up with a set vision and direction for that book. Right now it's all a jumble of facts, concepts, and images. It's easy to lose focus on what the reality is and where we need to go, but that is key to success. If we don't understand the endpoint we can't reach that endpoint. In order to bring about change on a large scale it requires the involvement of many people working together. One person cannot do it alone. So refining & spreading the vision is a key to external change. Of course that also requires understanding your own vision. After all, how can we explain what we don't necessarily understand ourselves? So what are some of the keys to this change? Well since the problem is that youth are not trained to be and act like adults, than that needs to be a starting point as well. Boy, my mind is a jumbled mess. Everything here is valid and valuable, but without direction and action, it is nothing more than a jumbled mess.

Image from Robbie1 used under cc license.

Vision to Reality - Facing the Giant

So now what? This is the difficult part. I see and for the most part understand the problem. That's the easy part. It's what to do next that is the difficult part. The problem exists on so many levels in our society that it is nigh impossible to tackle it all. It deals with institutions and views that are ingrained into our society and that have been a part of this culture and environment for over a century. How do you break the backbone of a century's old view and mentality that pervades an entire culture, society, and world? How do you tackle something that is so far encompassing that it invades us in every area that we live? It is defined in how we work, what we do in our "spare" time, how we live, how & what we eat, what we teach our kids, how our kids learn, our own expectations, what we see and invades our home. How does one even pretend to tackle this problem without being destroyed by it?

There are individuals, families, and even entire communities that have seen these problems for a long time and instead of fighting it have separated themselves from the problem and the society that it pervades. At times they have become outsiders looking in critically and rejecting our society as a whole, or they just don't even care and would rather be their own entity and allow the rest of society slowly destroy itself while they go on living their own lives. I can understand it, and in a way it is a very awe inspiring view to see the battle against the onslaught of outside forces. However, it does so little to actually create the change that needs to occur.

So how do you fight a battle that is so much larger than yourself that you can't even see & comprehend the vastness of it? How do you fell a giant that encompasses a planet in the face of a people that doesn't even recognize that the giant exists, that may only see a finger or toe of the giant and attempts to fight only that part, or that don't even understand that the giant is a problem? The answer is that one person alone can't... but then we never really are alone, are we?
II Kings 6:1-23 especially vs. 16 "And he answered, Do not fear, for those with us are more than those with them."

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Redefining the Vision

It's nice to not be feeling miserable all the time. Now i just need to get past the complete exhaustion phase and the massively stressed out one. Anyways, that's neither here nor there.
I think it's time to reiterate and refine my vision, and to look at what i am doing and needing to do to bring that vision to fruition.

What is my vision? My vision is to have youth and young adults prepared for adulthood, trained to be adults and able to handle healthy relationships with their peers and those of the opposite sex. To mature and grow in their relationship with God as well as to become leaders and successful as people.
So, what does that mean? That's a good question. I'm glad that you asked. It means.............. Um, could you repeat the question please? Oh, yeah. What it means is that we need to prepare youth to be adults. Instead of just expecting that one day youth will be adults and will act like adults when they mature enough, we need to be helping them prepare and grow into adulthood. Unless youth are trained and expected to act like adults, chances are they are not going to.
Where has this vision come from? Our society has created this idea, this concept, that youth are kids and not adults. They are not supposed to act like or become adults until they are at least 21. The time between 17 or 18 and 21 is the ramp up stage in which they put their childish ways behind them and prepare for the real world. Prior to that is the adolescent stage in which youth rebel against authority and begin to become their own person. Adolescence is a troublesome time in which youth begin to "find themselves" and define who they are by standing against authority. The problem that i see is that these are modern and very unhealthy concepts. Traditionally, prior to the industrial revolution and the modern educational system, children were raised to become adults. When they were young, children were expected to help out and be involved where they could. As they grew they were given more and more responsibility until they were around the age of puberty (much older than puberty hits now, usually around 15-18). At that time they went through a rite of passage and became adults. As adults they were expected to act like adults, and to be able to provide and take care of a family. Which, with some help from family and the community, they could do since they spent their lives training and preparing for it. Now, however, even after 12+ years of "formal" education and many times 4 years of post high-school education, young adults still don't know how to be adults and take care of and provide for their families.
So, what now? That's a good question that i don't have enough time to get into right now. Check back tomorrow when i want to deal with plans, purposes, and steps to take.

Image from HelenaN used under cc license.

Vision! Direction?

It's amazing when you have the vision and the desire for something and that desire is so big that you can't even function properly in your daily life. Going to work only makes sense because you need to pay the bills so that you can do what has been laid on your heart to do. You would rather be doing that thing for your job than the job that you have. More and more, this is where my wife and i have been / been going. Working with youth and young adults has always been a desire for us. However, that desire is being rekindled more and more into a passion and life focus. At our church, we are being given, relatively, a very loose leash when it comes to working with the youth. The youth pastor trusts us and our vision, and with him having to take more responsibility in other areas he doesn't have the time or ability to take on even more. So now we have to take this direction and use it. So we will see where we go from here.