Understanding Your Young Teen - Introduction
For the next several weeks, our regular posts for leadership development in student ministry will focus on a new book by youth ministry guru Mark Oestreicher. As a youth worker team at Prescott Church Modesto, we will work through his book Understanding Your Young Teen, taking one chapter per week (or longer), pulling out a few golden nuggets and have ongoing discussion as to how we can interpret and apply what we are reading to our specific context. If you would like to join the conversation, join us here on each week’s post or go the facebook route.
Understanding Your Young Teen - Introduction
“These days, as a church worker, I often see high school ministry as being “corrective” in nature, while middle school ministry is now the make-or-break space (or “preventative” in nature).” [p. 10] In the fifteen or so years that I have been in student ministry, I have seen this shift. When I first started in the field, all the stats were out there that said if you can’t reach a teen by the time they are done with high school, they’re pretty much toast. While I don’t agree with that assessment or the stats as they have been written, I understand the implications as to what they mean. A lot of this has to do with the formative years of being a teen, specifically the young teen in junior high. Let us posit: If a junior high student has a positive church experience during their most formative years, then they are better set up for a positive experience during their high school years and beyond. That’s true. The opposite is also true. Take that same junior high kid and throw in a horrible church experience and they will never breach the doors of a church building or want to live life with other Christians. Here are some questions to wrestle with off that statement:
- What are you doing to provide a positive church experience for young teens?
- Do you agree with Marko’s assessment of the “make-or-break space”?
“This book is unique in its purpose and scope. I think. My working assumption, my foundational theory, is this: If you understand why your young teen thinks, acts, and feels the way he or she does, you’ll be in a significantly better place from which to engage with your child.” [p. 13] Perhaps this is our hope as a team here at Prescott, that we would be empowered by the knowledge we obtain, transforming alongside our young teens. The more knowledge we have, the more we experience what we know to be true, and especially the more we open ourselves up to the young teen world, the more we will batter adept to handle any and all things thrown our way. Think about it:
- How is the life of a young teen a priority for your ministry or church?
- What are you doing to actively engage the world of young teens?
