Youth Movement (Friday Devotional)

Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

- 1 Timothy 4:12

The past two weeks, I’ve spent my workdays swimming in a pond, playing GaGa Ball (imagine a combination of foursquare and dodgeball), climbing a rock wall, playing all sorts of crazy games, and subsisting on water, salty snacks, and camp food. After all, that’s what it looks like to spend two weeks at youth camp and preteen camp.

But over the past two weeks, I’ve also listened to teenagers bare their souls, sharing with stunning sincerity the temptations they face, the struggles awaiting them at home, and the trials they’ve already been forced to face in their young lives. I’ve had spiritual conversations with children who didn’t yet have the vocabulary to describe the grace of God—as if adults do. I’ve worshipped powerfully and passionately, in spirit and in truth, alongside hundreds of people too young to drive or to vote, but old enough to know that Jesus loves them. Because that’s also what it looks like to spend two weeks at youth camp and preteen camp.

As adults, sometimes we make the critical mistake of condescending to the under-18 crowd in our churches. We understand that they will be the caretakers of the church to come, but we don’t yet trust them to contribute to the church here and now. We call them “the future of the church,” but we waffle on allowing them to be a part of its present. We admire their passion and their vision, but it also makes us nervous.

But our hesitation to let young people participate in the life of the church is far from biblical—in fact, the apostle Paul cautioned against it, telling his student Timothy not to let older church members look down on him because of his youth. And of course, Jesus famously welcomed children when others found them to be a nuisance.

Based on my personal experience and my reading of Scripture, I am here to tell you that God is doing mighty things in and through young people, and we adults owe it to ourselves and to the Lord to listen to them. There are little children, preteens, and teenagers in your life who have something to teach you and something to offer to the kingdom—will you let them?