Teenagers are Funny Too

I spend so much time with Caleb and other toddlers, that it's pretty refreshing to spend an hour with the youth at church on Wednesday nights. It is such a challenge to balance serious subject matter with a presentation that engages them.

Well like a young child sometimes they just say things that are funny. Like last night I was telling them about how I joined FBLA in high school just so I'd have more clubs to list on scholarship applications, not because I was interested in business. (I had a point to the story.) And I asked the group, "What is FBLA?" I got a short pause and someone shouted out "Florida Power and Light!"

At another part of the lesson, I read a quote from Mere Christianity. Since Disney made that Narnia movie I thought a couple of them would recognize the name C.S. Lewis. I held up the book and said, "Who knows what else C.S. Lewis wrote?" An eager young man spoke up, "The Purpose Driven Life!"

During small group we were discussing Islam and of course, they knew what Islam is - it's a country in the middle east.

Ok, most of these kids are middle schoolers, so there is hope for the future! I'm sure there was a time I would have given such silly answers, and I'm sure there are still questions I give silly answers to. Ignorance is such a humbling thing.

It's a cell phone camera picture, so it's not that great quality, but here's a picture from one of our Wednesday night meetings. The hats these kids were wearing represented the lusts of the eyes, the lusts of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life. I don't know if they can remember all 3 now, but they really liked the hats.

Our lessons are based on the Awana high school material, but I use a Gospel Light publication called Pulse as a supplemental resource. It is fabulous. I would love it if we could just use the Pulse studies. I know I have blogged about them before, but they are really great. They have 10 points about teaching the Bible to Jr. Highers and they are so accurate. One is that they learn better from each other than from adults and I have seen how incredibly true that is. Honestly sometimes they just like to see their friends do silly things, but they never zone out when I use volunteers.

Ultimately my ideas about how to interact with these kids have really changed since Caleb was born. It's like I have limitless patience for his struggles to learn (not that I never get frustrated, but I never find myself mystified that he doesn't know how to do something). And that has helped me see these 14 and 15 year olds as what they really are - closer in age to Caleb than they are to me! And frankly unable to do (think) certain things they way an adult would. I have taught teenagers in the past and their simply not being adults left me feeling disappointed with their efforts. I don't want my wrong ideas about how mature they are to get in the way of them having a chance to really give their lives to Christ. And it has freed me up to have more fun with them too.