Teenagers as a Mission Field [Part 2 of 4]

Last week, I wrote about how youth pastors should look at teenagers as a mission field. To recap, the oversimplified job description of a missionary is:

1. Learn the language and customs of the culture which you are serving;
2. Use your knowledge and experience from #1 to communicate the truth of Jesus to the culture; and
3. Establish indigenous leadership that can effectively continue to lead God's people in that culture.

My question is How well do we do with the different parts of this job description? In this post, I'll focus a bit on #1: Learn the language and customs of the culture which you are serving.

Right off the bat, I need to acknowledge that youth culture is too complex and varied with many subcultures to give a fair treatment in this space.
My goal is not to define youth culture. That would be as naive and as big of a waste of time as trying to define African culture, which varies greatly from tribe to tribe and location to location. Instead, let me offer this analogy: imagine you were going to serve in a foreign location, such as Poland, as my friends Clint and Missy are currently doing. In their preparation and initial training, they have learned much about Polish culture. In addition, they are spending much of their first year doing their best to learn the Polish language. In the same way, we need to be students of teenagers. To keep it simple, I will ask two questions:

How do teenagers communicate?
This is not a simple question of lingo. A lot is involved in communication. Of course, there is vocabulary to learn, just like there is in learning Polish. But there are also other considerations, such as modes of communication. And just like learning another language, there are things we learn as we spend time with the teenagers we serve that we would never learn from a textbook. I learned to text because teenagers text, and I finally got a Facebook account because in my current church, it's a very important mode of communication among our high school students. If our goal is to communicate the gospel, we need to know how teenagers communicate.

How do teenagers "do life?"
This is the culture question. It's also a very difficult question, because teenagers cannot (and will not) be pigeon-holed into a particular definition of culture. On top of this, there are so many subcultures to consider, there is no way for us to learn about them all. However, by living life with teenagers, we can learn more about how they operate, relate to one another, relate to their families, and relate to God. We need to be willing to learn about what's important to teenagers, what kind of art impacts them, rites of passage, and their social and ethical mores. Now, let me say this about myself: I am not advocating that we need to know everything about the latest music, T.V. shows, movies, or social networking sites. In fact, for most of us, if we're just finding out about the coolest thing teenagers are into, it's probably not cool anymore. We simply need to be willing to step into the lives of our teenagers and find out what's important to them. I rarely watch T.V., although I do like movies. Sometimes my wife will let me know that I need to watch an episode or two of a particular show many teenagers are watching, but I am generally clueless about most of the entertainment world. However, I take this slant: I invite students to teach me about what they watch, listen to, and read. I learn tons from students when I simply ask to listen to their iPod for a few minutes (they have them just about all the time) and ask them questions about the music. It's okay that we may not like all aspects of teenage culture. However, if we are going to be missionaries, we need to be willing to live with teenagers and learn everything we can.


Both of the above questions are answered not by reading a whole lot, but by spending time with teenagers and living life with them. One way I do that besides spending time with students at my church is by volunteering twice a week at the local high school. I enjoy spending time with a variety of teenagers, and I see a lot more in public high school during the week than many teenagers will reveal at church.

Here's the great thing: you don't have to be a teenager to communicate and connect with a teenager. Our goal in learning another culture's language and way of life is not necessarily to assimilate into that culture. The goal is to connect with people within that culture for the sake of Jesus. A great (secular) example of connecting with adolescent culture is Patricia Hersch's A Tribe Apart. In the next segment, we'll look at just how we can communicate the gospel to teenage culture.

Update: Read Part 1, Part 3 and Part 4 of the series.

Thanks for reading! Don't miss out; sign up to have posts delivered right to your inbox via FeedBurner: