Thursday, May 26, 2005

Raising Teenagers

Next weekend I get my semi-annual (or is it biannual? I always get those two confused) chance to use my preaching chops in Big Kid Church, as we youth and children's ministry-types like to call it...we are in the middle of a series called Extreme Makeover: Family Edition, and I get the task of tackling the Kid's Room: Raising Teenagers...this strikes me as quite funny...sure, I am the youth pastor and I studied youth ministry in seminary...plus, I read quite a bit on the subject of ministering to teens...but the closest I have ever come to raising anything is my dog Attie - who is still shy of one year old (human years) - and my jade plant that is a few years old...what do I know about raising teens?!?...it's pretty intimidating...the last two times I have preached, I have had someone write to complain about something nitpicky that I said or did in the course of the sermon that they didn't like...I can't wait to read my e-mail after this one!...but you know what?...it's like JD said when he preached here in February...he told the story of a four-year old that got in his parent's car and drove to the video store in the middle of the night, and finding it closed, drove home again...he then made the analogy that preaching the word of God feels kind of like that, trying to navigate this huge thing and feeling like you are four years old...I feel that way as I preach to parents on how to do their job...as a little child I come to God and ask Him to direct my driving skills...or lack thereof...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wait, wait...Not to totally be out of touch with the point of the post or anything, but I'm having trouble getting over the whole "4 year old drving" thing..I'm 16 and I can barely drive to the movie store and back..anywho..moving on.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure you did a good job with this assignment but I have to wonder about the motives of the person who assigned you to the job. If you are the oldest and most experienced person on the staff then it makes sense but otherwise.... As a mom whose oldest offspring just passed their teens, a former high school and junior high teacher and a former youth group leader, I can tell you there's a pretty good chance there are a few things that you can't know yet. I was assigned to lead parenting groups of several kinds before I had kids too. It's amazing, in retrospect, that so few people made any "constructive" comments.

Fitz said...

I don't at all doubt the motives of my senior pastor, who gave me this assignment...true, I don't have teenagers in my home, so there are bound to be some thing I don't know (but I work with them and study them an awful lot)...this is similar to the fact that I have never participated in performing sacrifices like they did in OT times, but I have studied it enough to know at least somewhat how to teach it...am I an expert?...by no means...but does age and seniority guarantee expertise...probably not...