Roy Petitfils

Kids are NOT the FUTURE of the Church

Suggested alternatives to a few trite expressions we say to young people:

1. "You are the future of the Church" Try instead: "You are the Young Church. You offer unique gifts and a  a bright light. I encourage you to be creative and courageous in how you share these today! Your Baptism was not a guest pass. You are not visitors in mom, dads and Father's Church. This is your Church. It's your responsibility to stake your claim in it. "

2. "You can make a difference." Try instead: "You DO make a difference today. The world is different right this instant because you are here. What you choose to do and not do has consequences even if you are not aware of what they are."

3. "Someday, you're gonna be somebody." Try instead: "You don't have to wait to be remarkable--you already are. If you think you have to wait before you can share your gifts with the world its only because you don't believe they're worth sharing today. You're wrong. And I commit (only say this if you mean it) to walking with you to help you discover and utilize your giftedness."

A Spirituality of Blessing-Diocese of Lake Charles Catechetical Conference

A portion of my Keynote address to Diocesan educators in Lake Charles on recognizing our gifts. If video fails to load, click here.

Kids are Experiencing More Mental Health Problems

New research suggests that youth today suffer from five times the amount of mental health issues as their  counterparts during the Great Depression era. Dr. Jean Twenge, of San Diego State University, author of Generation Me, and The Narcissism Eipidemic, was kind enough to send me an advance copy soon to be published in Clinical Psychology Review.

·       Some contributing factors: popular culture increasingly focused on the external — from wealth to looks and status.
·       "hypomania," a measure of anxiety and unrealistic optimism rose from 5% of students i n 1938 to 31% in 2007 and depression from 1% to 6%).
·       increases in "psychopathic deviation," loosely related to a milder form of psychopathic behavior, is characterized by rebellion to authority and feeling as an exception to rules and norms. This percentage of youth rose from 5% in 1938 to 24% in 2007.
·       overprotective parents leave their children few real-world coping skills, whether that means doing their own budget or confronting professors on their own—without such skills, anxiety is to be  expected.
·       Students themselves point to pressure to succeed — self-imposed and otherwise — to a fast-paced world that's only sped up by the technology they love so much.

How Do We Anchor Faith in Young People?

I've been thinking for some time about how effective we are as ministers, teachers and parents at helping young people integrate their faith.

 

For years I brought teens on religious experience on top of religious experience hoping that the sheer exposure to God's grace would be enough to reach, penetrate and anchor our Great Faith Story inside their hearts.

 

I still believe that.

 

But trusting too much in God’s power to effect change can lead to complacency. We are called to bring others to Jesus. But we don’t just leave them there so we can go back for more. Carrying more and more people to Jesus is a misinterpretation of the Gospel.

 

When we continue to walk with kids after they encounter Christ, we can help them sort out what that encounter means for them. Events, curriculum and even good books cannot do this.

 

But relationships can. Relationships are what anchor faith deep under the often tumultuous waters of a kid’s heart.

 

What is Your One Big Thing?

The Greek Poet Archilocus said, “the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” The fox is a quick, sleek and smart animal. It has many resources. The hedgehog however, is slow and stodgy and has only one big resource—persistence.

 

Sometimes the hedgehog reaches its goal before the fox because, unlike the fox he’s not distracted by its many options.

 

Its been said that the great saints—great souls are people with a very simple belief system. They were hedgehogs—they remained focused on one big thing.

 

For Mother Teresa it was quenching the thirst of Jesus who was disguised in the poorest of the poor. For Pope John Paul II, it was reminding us of our human dignity, bestowed upon us by God. For Father Frank Pavone it is defending the sanctity of life. For me, it is serving those who serve the Young Church.

 

You may not know what your one big thing is. But you do know one big God. And when you are consumed by God, his Spirit will work through you in a particularly amazing and contagious way. It may take  a lifetime, but you'll get there. A hedgehog always reaches their goal because they are consumed by one big thing.

 

What’s your one thing? What could you accomplish if you were consumed by it? What could God accomplish through you if you were consumed by Him?

A Lost Generation

It's easy to get discouraged.

Yet change is possible. We always have hope that God can work wonders even in the most cynical, despairing hearts.

Creativity is Messy

Seth Godin blogged this morning that those who do not meet expected standards, be them academic or behavioral, receive most of our attention. It is easy to unconsciously reward the child or employee who just sits there being neither creative nor disruptive. 

It is much easier to manage these people than encouraging, teaching and affirming creativity. 

That's because creativity is hard. Not because it involves more work. But because creativity is messy. Institutions, be them schools, corporations or countries, don't like messes.

And kids are messy. Add just a touch of Gospel to those messy kids and you're sure to headed for a world class mess.

Jesus created a world class mess. Just a handful of his messy students changed the world. Our young disciples can too. If we let them.

Effective teachers, ministers and parents have a high tolerance for messiness--be them dirty diapers or daily drama. They can hold others imperfections and brokenness because they've practiced first on themselves. 

The really Good News is that God not only tolerates our messiness, but uses it, works through it and sanctifies it.

If we let him. 

Will you?

Connecting with Kids: Context vs. Content

When connecting with kids, its important to understand the difference between the context of their lives and the content. Our challenge is to understand and penetrate the context in order to reach them on the deeper, more substantial "content" level.  The Catholic Youth Ministry Blog takes a more catechetical slant on both context and content.

Messy Discipleship

Working with kids is rewarding, exciting, taxing, exhilarating, mind-boggling, frustrating, life-giving, and spiritually rewarding.  It’s also messy. 

We give our time and energy to serve Jesus by working with kids, and in the back of our minds we some how expect  ministry to be neat and tidy.  And it rarely is.  It’s always messy. Good ministry is always messy.  

It gets real messy when we try to force kids into adult modes of faith and decision making.   

 To often I have unvoiced expectations of children and teens to behave like adults. And that's unfair. They cannot do it. Nor should they be able to.

Young people make mistakes (and so do we).  They make big mistakes and small mistakes and many in between.  On the same day that they disappoint us, they also exemplify charity and selfless concern for others that shames us. 

We set ourselves up for unnecessary disappointment when we expect the faith development and maturity of a 15 year old, to somehow rival that of a 35 year old.  And while the St. Bernadettes of the world prove such faith possible, it is usually an exceptional gift from the Lord. 

How then can our ministries reflect a gospel model of discipleship?

First, by setting realistic expectations for what we mean by youth discipleship.  If our goals are for teens to make moral decisions in an adult manner, we should expect disappointment.  

When we are able to call youth to higher standards, sometimes reach them, and sometimes not, we will be able to survive this rollercoaster of youth work. More importantly we will genuinely be present to them when they mess up.  This presence will communicate our genuine love and concern, rather than thrashing them with disappointment and disapproval. 

There are times and circumstances that require strong, immediate action, if for nothing else than the safety of the youth.  But when safety is not the issue, our primary concern should be the preservation of the relationship.  When the relationship is strong, and there is a high level of trust, our ministry is more effective. 

Young people will listen to our concerns when, and only when, we have earned the right to be heard by them.  We can only earn this right through tilling the soil of relational ministry.  The time and energy we give to developing and maintaining Christ-centered relationships will, rather than justifying mistakes or further victimizing this generation of young people, enable us to call them forward with us to higher levels of responsible action. 

This is the ministry that Jesus modeled for us. He was patient, loving and firm with his disciples, who were immature, young, prideful and were often lackluster in their devotion.  With Christ as our model as let us get our hands and feet dirty working in his fields. 

 

God Wears Running Shoes

Mark Batterson posted this morning that our God follows us, hunts us down and never turns his back on us. It reminded me of a quote by Simon Tugwell "So long as we imagine that it is we who have to look for God, we must often lose heart. It is the other way about--He is looking for us."

Below is a short article (which became a book) applying that theme to our work with young people.

In my house, the phrase “I’m gonna get you!” sets off an ecstatic shriek followed by the rapid pitter patter of little feet doing their best to wobble/run away from me.  My son, Max, loves to play chase with his Da Da.  As he’s running away he always turns around  to make sure I’m still following him, which I am—I hope I always will.

But I know that one day, “I’m gonna get you!” will produce an embarrassed sneer and that once ecstatic shriek will give way to “Daayaaad, leave me alone!” 

Kids inevitably leave behind original innocence. Childhood games become more sophisticated and their delights often grow less innocent. In the process, many lose themselves and stray far from those who love them. I've seen how this takes an enormous toll on their family and friends.

There is hope to be found in the story of the Prodigal Son. You're familiar with the high points:  Boy leaves dad.  Boy gets into trouble.  Boy comes back ready to beg for mercy.  Father takes boy back, makes big brothern jealous, but a happy ending nonetheless.

One of the dangers of becoming too familiar with the Gospel is that we risk becoming impenetrable to subtle new discoveries. For years I skimmed right over Jesus saying, “While he was still a long way off, the Father caught sight of him and was filled with compassion.  He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.”  

I wish someone would offer a depiction of this classic story and portray the Father wearing running shoes.  The Father waited, he watched and he ran.

Most of my life I saw God as a begrudging innkeeper who tolerated guests who were bold enough to beat the door down.  I am convinced that this is a prevalent image of God among Christians–a tolerant dad, who allows us to enter the Inn of Forgiveness and Grace, once he is convinced that we understand exactly how much we've let him down.

This image of God served me well for most of my life.  It kept me on the straight and narrow. It kept me safe.  But it offers little hope for our universal inability to deal with shame and brokenness.  And I believe it offers even less to a generation of jaded youth who would rather indefinitely put off a relationship with God, much less surrender to him. 

The Father of Jesus Christ is a runner. 

Even while we are a long way off, we take hope in the fact that God has been waiting and watching for us and is lacing up his running shoes to race toward us! God desires a relationship with us more than we do with him. He is passionate about this relationship, not because it keeps things spiritually tidy, but because he desperately loves us. 

God loves us even while we are a long way off of the straight and narrow path. It is difficult to accept such raw, illogical and unrequited intimacy.  It is not the experience of most Christians, and I believe it is one reason  young people find it difficult to relate to God. 

Even when we have lost hope for our wayward children, we have a sure hope that God has not!  Even when we have lost the energy and will to run, God is running after them, chasing them and beckoning them back.  Our hope is in the name of the Lord—who wears running shoes!

Practical Tips for Connecting with Teens (Edited)

 (I'm often asked about my writing, etc. Every chance I can I'll slip in a post or two about my processes of writing and editing. This is an edited version of a previous post. I cut about 25%)

·       Ask questions—everyone likes having input. Allow young people to express their voice, even if we disagree with it, makes them more likely to listen to ours—even if they disagree.

·       Seek to understand— “let me not seek to be understood, but to understand.” Its amazing how easy it is to ignore the first part of that line. When our audiences (young or old) see that we want to understand their perspective, they’ll tune in because they know we are their for them and not just to be another talking head.

·       Listen attentively--just like everyone else, kids know if we are listening to them or just nodding and going along. And just like everyone else, they feel respected and important when we really listen to their opinion. To see if you are really listening, try paraphrasing what was said and ask them if they feel heard. If they say “yes”, you get an A+.

·       Craft your message in keeping with the developmental needs of young people—being a teenager is tough. Its is a time of transitioning between life stages and balancing human needs associated with each stage. Some of those needs are autonomy, acceptance, uniqueness, change, curiosity, stability and adventure. (Read more about these needs here).

·       Gently reframe tough issues—it’s been said that the three driving needs of any human being are to look good, feel good and be right. While our need to be right fuels our passion, it can also make us seem less persuasive and challenging and more combative and stubborn. 

      When I'm asked “Mr. P why does the Catholic Church always have to be right.” I respond, “Well, first of all, it doesn’t. There are many aspects of our tradition (with a small “t”) that we could change. But it sounds like you think the Catholic Church is the only institution that ‘has to be right.’ Most institutions, if they are to survive, need policies, rules, and boundaries to maintain a sense of order and identity. The Church embodies both the advantages and drawbacks of any institution."

      In reframing the issue I've gently challenged their assumption that the Church is an arrogant institutional snot to normalizing our institutional idiosyncrasies.

These are just a few, check back as I’ll be adding more. Click here to get the weekly column by email.