Beyond Pat Answers
March 8, 2008
by Renee Altson
The youth pastor patted me on top of the head—not with tenderness, but with a dismissive, condescending motion. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. “Just remember,” he said, “God causes all things to work together for good. God won’t give you anything that you can’t handle.”
I wiped away the tears that had started to form and forced a smile. Walking away, I thought, “Dude, you have no idea what I’m going through. I don’t even know if there is a God anymore.”
We live in a world of instant gratification. We can have almost anything we want on demand. Fast food, fast Bible lessons, fast relationships—everything comes with a money-back, feel-good, 30-minutes-or-less guarantee.
Today’s Christianity has bought into that kind of mentality,as well. Got a broken heart? Jesus can fix it. Feel overwhelmed by sadness? Cast all your cares on him. Feeling stuck between two decisions? Just trust and obey.
What are we offering our students when we give them pat answers and tired clichés? Are we teaching them that we buy into the notion of instant pleasure and quick fixes? Are we setting them up for a life of disappointment and doubt?
The pat answers given to me throughout my lifetime, particularly during my adolescent years, almost did me in. They brought guilt and shame—a sense of never being good enough, of never being godly enough. I struggled constantly with these quick fixes that just didn’t work for me. I’d confess, repent, and accept Jesus into my heart—I really would. And nothing would feel any different. So I’d do it again, repeatedly confessing and repenting in an attempt to feel the answers that were supposed to be there. I’d pray for hours, asking Jesus into my heart again and again. Why didn’t he fix me? Why didn’t God give me strength? What was I doing wrong?
In the end, swamped with frustration and sadness, I didn’t blame God or suddenly decide it was Jesus’ fault. I blamed myself.
One of the problems with pat answers is that they’re usually taken straight from Scripture and therefore contain some element of truth—enough truth to distort; enough truth that, when offered, seems real.
We don’t offer lies to our students, we offer half-truths. We offer the resurrection without the agony of the cross. We offer the ascension without the garden of Gethsemane. And we end up with students with half-truth lives—students who won’t know how to survive the difficulties they face; students with weak faith that is easily uprooted by winds of disappointment and doubt.
What can you do to help ground your students? How do you get beyond pat answers? Do you even want to?
Face Pain
You must befriend the reality of hurting people; you must acknowledge some wounds that are so big they may make you ask, “Why, God?” and even “God, are you there?”
One of the problems with Christians is that we feel we must constantly defend our faith so zealously, we don’t know how to let God handle the huge issues. We try to minimize our situations and lives so we don’t need a big God. Big pain requires a big God.
Embrace Unknowing
A million years of theology doesn’t speak to the heart like a genuine “I don’t know.” And let’s be truthful—there are some things we don’t know.
We can guess. We can come up with alliterative phrases that describe the atonement, the purpose of sin, the meaning of redemption; but when it comes to this student in this moment in this situation, we all too often just don’t know. Pretending that we do leads to pat answers and dishonesty.
Allow for Process
There’s a lot of pressure in the church to be okay. It’s subliminal, from upraised hands during the worship chorus to kneeled moments during the altar call, but it exists.
Many people will expect you to fix the hurting kids in your ministry. After all, you’re the youth pastor. But it’s important not to rush the process. We don’t serve a God who expects us to be put together; we serve a God who suffers with us in our sufferings, who weeps with us in our sorrow.
Listen
Sometimes the best words are no words at all. A lot is unsaid in those quiet, intimate moments. Much is conveyed in quiet breathing and simple sharing of space. And in that silence, you won’t damage someone’s heart. You won’t minimize his pain or tell him what you think he needs to hear or what you want to say.
Just be with her. Be with her without feeling a need to fix her. Listen to the cries of her heart. Offer them up to God.
Pat answers are dangerous. They minimize our God and they minimize us. They turn our religion into something that God never intended. And they diminish our light in the world.
Renee Altson is a pat answers survivor, a former youth worker, the Web editor for YouthWorker Journal, the Web content specialist at Youth Specialties, and the author of Stumbling towards Faith: My Longing to Heal from the Evil that God Allowed (emergentYS/Zondervan).
reprinted by permission of youthspecialties.com
The Right Kind of Kids
February 20, 2008
TO: Youth Director
FROM: Administrative Board
Re: The right kind of kids
I’m sure you’ll agree that attracting the right kind of kid to the program will then attract the right kind of parent. Remember we’re all about families here. The more familial-giving-units we can bring on board, the quicker we can move into the new family life center.
It’s recently come to our attention that your youth program may not be attracting the right sort of kids to our church. Mildred Fleener, who has been at this church since 1809, graciously volunteered to create a sub-committee on youth activities and came up with the following list of suggestions on which kinds of kids may NOT be entirely appropriate for our church.
* Kids who wear too much black. (This includes hair dye and lipstick.)
* Kids who smoke. (Smell them when they come in.)
* Kids who drink. (Pay attention to kids who pop a lot of Tic-Tacs. See Also: Smoking)
* Kids who have their own cars. (Kids who drive themselves to church make parents uncomfortable.)
* Kids who have more than one piercing. (One in each ear is plenty. Girls only!)
* Kids who use the word “suck.”
* Kids who slouch during church.
* Kids who pass notes during church.
* Kids who don’t know all the words to Our God Is an Awesome God.
* Kids from broken homes.
* Kids who have…uh…more than one mommy.
* Kids who have jobs or sports activities that interfere with youth activities.
* Kids who give “that look.”
* Kids who aren’t familiar with even the most elementary Bible stories.
* Kids who come to youth meetings but not to real church.
* Kids who come to church but don’t sing.
* Kids who come to church but sing too loud.
* Kids who ask too many questions.
* Kids who don’t participate in the youth fundraisers.
* That one kid who keeps taking six of the good cookies from the “fellowship time” table and then going to the youth room to eat them.
* That girl with the eye makeup and the perfume.
* That boy with the eye makeup and the perfume.
* “That” kid from “that” family.
* Kids who wear T-shirts that feature bands that sing lyrics that make adults uncomfortable.
* Kids who wear T-shirts depicting Jesus the Son of God as a “homeboy.”
* Kids who wear T-shirts that bare the midriff (See also: Piercing)
* Kids who wear shorts with words on their backsides that may cause others to actually look there.
(NOTE: Shelly Smith frequently wears shorts and midriff-bearing shirts that say “Our God Is an Awesome God.” This clothing is still unacceptable despite her attempts to call it evangelism.)
As we have new visitors every Sunday, it’s important that they see a happy, close-knit group of well-adjusted, happy teenagers who enjoy church and enjoy sitting with their families.
Please keep these guidelines in mind when visiting the high schools or welcoming friends of current youth group members.
Yours in Christ,
The Administrative Board
Sub-Committee on Youth Activities
To: Youth Director
From: Jesus
Re: The right kind of kids
Over here. I’ll take ‘em.
Yours In Me, Jesus
Authored by Steve Case.
STEVE CASE has been active in youth ministry for 18 years, currently at Windermere Union United Church of Christ near Orlando, Fla. He’s also a popular speaker and the author of several books, including Everything Counts, The Book of Uncommon Prayer, and The Youth Worker’s Big Book of Case Studies . (YS)
© 2005 Youth Specialties
Electronically reprinted in fosni.org, with permission from YouthSpecialties.com