J.W., a preteen, went through a spiritual conversion during youth ministry. No, I did not lead J.W. down that path. To be honest, a number of caring adults and youth contributed to that monumental moment. The outcome proved remarkable, a young person on fire for God. J.W. came from a blue-collar background with a nominal to nonexistent Christian environment. The small youth group responded with love and encouragement. Not long after J.W.’s transformation, I stepped down as youth pastor and headed for seminary, feeling confident the ministry was on the right track and perhaps J.W. someday would embrace the same call.
I was wrong.
Along came a name-it-and-claim-it youth evangelist, and J.W. named and claimed an unsuspecting girl as his girlfriend. Needless to say, the girl set J.W. straight…and J.W. walked straight away from his faith. The youth group was stunned, as was I.
Through the years, J.W.’s story haunted me. He disappeared into history. I never doubted J.W.’s sincerity or the power of those early days of his conversion. I never doubted the youth group’s love and support. I wish I had met the youth evangelist…but God’s grace was greater than mine, so it never happened. What I really wish I had in those days was a better understanding of the brain’s impact on our spiritual conversion.
The Spiritual Equation of Conversion
There is no denying that all conversions begin—and end—with God. Just what that means for each youth worker looks a little different depending on the Scripture verses we lift up as central, our Christian heritage and our commitment to church doctrine. Conversion relies on God’s gracious act through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Yet how we participate in our own conversions as believers, and what roles we play as youth workers, remain part of the equation. That side of the equation confounds many of us as young people embrace the faith. Gordon T. Smith, in his book Beginning Well: Christian Conversion Authentic Transformation, surveys Scripture and argues that our side includes intellectual (belief), penitential (confession), affectional (emotion) and volitional (will) dimensions. These internal dimensions work together in a holistic manner that participates with God’s gracious side in the conversion experience.
So how do these dynamics look in young people as they participate in their conversion? Perhaps recent research around the brain, coupled with what we observe about conversions, can help us understand the human side of the conversion equation, including preteens.
While brain research is not foolproof, basic principles can help us understand how preteens can and do respond to the gospel. We might begin with neuroscientist and educator Judy Willis’ approach to a neurological perspective, connecting the dots between daily experiences and what we authentically can back up with neuroscience research. To begin, several brain principles help us understand J.W.’s responses during his conversion and struggle.
Firing and Wiring: Experience Shapes Connections
As a young person grows, the brain constantly is changing and adapting. One way to think of the brain is to imagine it as the inside of a baseball, a tightly packed container of brain cells (neurons) that connect chemically to each other through appendages we call synapses (that resemble tree branches). We know children actually have more synapses than needed, so a lot of childhood includes the pruning of these branches through experiences. Experiences (sight, sound, tough, taste) flow chemically through synapses that strengthen some branches while other synaptic connections wither away. So nature (genetics) and nurture (life experience) combine to shape the mind of a preteen. This process also influences moments of deeper spiritual change, whether gradually or through eventful moments of decision. J.W.’s conversion was important, but he needed more Christian experiences to deepen the synaptic connections that would reinforce his commitment while pruning attitudes and actions shaped by his earlier childhood.
Wired Together: Embedded Assumptions
Neuroscientists say that brain cells that fire together ultimately wire together into neural networks that shape action and attitude. Otherwise, other synaptic pathways, whether governing language, learning or behavior, may dwindle. So the old saying, “Use it or lose it,” applies to brain pathways. For preteens, early environment does impact their conversion experience. Young people enter that moment with deeply held, if tacit, assumptions about the world. Those assumptions are not embedded in stone. Similar to tree branches, these assumptions remain flexible but also far more resilient than we might realize. Part of the conversion experience includes wrestling with ideas, attitudes and actions shaped by previous experience. The greater the gap between previous experience and a changed life, the more energy may show up at the moment of conversion—as a branch breaking from a limb. However, a young person shaped deeply by life in the church still may make a real change, but the energy appears gentler as the mind adjusts to a renewed life. J.W.’s being on fire for God made sense in light of his previous life. The dramatic impact intimidated some regular church kids. The radical change also masked other issues J.W. had to address as part of his ongoing discipleship.
Use It or Lose It: Conversion Has to Be Reinforced
When a preteen reaches the moment of conversion, there often is a deep process at work behind that moment, one that will reinforce or challenge any changes demanded by the gospel. We know many times conversion includes moments of tension or struggle based on previous expectations and wiring until the young person commits to Jesus. In time, including after the initial decision, teens have to participate in experiences consistent with the gospel. Ultimately they must experience a gospel consistent with the message if they hope to wire together God’s grace and their actions. Preteens must live into their conversion with experiences that reinforce this new view of life. J.W. needed time and mentoring to grow into the faith he embraced; mental branches needed reinforcing through careful, gospel-shaped nurture.
Head and Heart: Thinking and Feeling Go Together
For a long time people separated information and emotion. The old evangelistic train of thought: fact…faith…feeling…implied that emotions were overrated. Neuroscientists now know this bifurcated view of thinking and feeling, head and heart, is bogus. Emotions remain deeply connected not only to learning, but also to memory. St. Augustine knew this long before the information train pulled into the station. Beliefs matter, but so does love (or what Augustine would call our desire for God and for others). While we cannot check our intellect at the door, preteen conversion has to take into consideration head and heart—a change of perspective along with a realignment of love. For J.W., his conversion still required a realignment of his desires to match his newfound life, a task he need to live into, which would require time.
Not Too Dumb: Thinking in Preteens
Beyond J.W.’s journey, there are other principles influencing our understanding of preteen conversion. One of the popular myths concerning preteens revolves around the idea that the thinking centers of preteen brains are not fully developed. The theory began when neuroscientists used scans of those judgment centers (in the frontal part of the brain) that seemed to indicate they were not wired fully during preteen years. Knowing that preteens are less adept at abstract concepts, the idea surfaced that preteens were intellectually incomplete. However, researchers who study this phase note that young people do possess the ability to begin to think critically earlier than we realize. Ellen Galinsky in Mind in the Making notes that children, young people begin to learn how to make connections. Some connections are logical in nature (learning rules and procedures), while others are more novel or imaginative. Preteens are capable of both, and often during conversion the novel or imaginative jumps to embracing the gospel, proving to be as important as the logical acceptance of beliefs. Emotionally, preteens also are testing their emotional IQ or risk and reward centers. Young people are willing to push the limits of risks if only to obtain a deeper sense of reward. So, preteens may embrace conversion based on a willingness to take a risk for the gospel rather than accepting an argument for the gospel.
Fear Factor: Too Much Fear Shuts off Thinking—and Loving
While emotions prove important, they can present problems. Judy Willis notes that the most elemental emotional center in the brain seems to be based around fear (the fight or flight center of the brain). When the brain perceives fear, logical centers often shut down so all the brain energy can be redirected toward escape. We act, but not necessarily think, based solely on self-preservation. This tidbit of information helps us understand how conversion never should be motivated by fear. Yes, we may explain consequences, but we have to be careful in building up a fear factor. When frightened, preteens act but they do not necessarily think about their actions…or learn in the long run. When young people are motivated to an altar based solely on fear, not love or logic, the response normally will be short-term at best, and often immediately lost when the fear is removed. Conversion requires an atmosphere of love, one that results in an expression of love on the part of the preteen.
Seeing the Transformed Mind as Whole
Often the idea of a transformed mind may seem to cerebral until we realize the mind includes the linkages between every aspect of our nervous system in our bodies, as well as specific areas within the brain. Thanks to neuroscience, we tend to think of the brain based on geographic regions. So, thinking seems to be in the front of the brain, motion control in the rear of the brain, and emotion embedded in the center. However, we really should see the whole brain as a complex system of interchanges, very similar to the wiring in a house or tracks of a subway system, with certain central switching areas or stations where more activity occurs. Warren Brown and Brad Strawn make a similar argument in The Physical Nature of Christian Life: Neuroscience, Psychology and the Church.
Conversion can include modest changes within the system so a preteen with a rich, gospel-shaped, experiential history might go through conversion gradually in time. However, conversion also can include big moments of change when the whole system has to adapt rather than suffer overload based on the incompatibility between a past rooted in a life different from the one imagined through the gospel. The good news is that the brain is flexible and resilient enough to adapt in the face of either moment and the renewal of our minds includes periods of gradual deepening, as well as events of change. We all are creatures in God’s good creation. We, including our brains, have been created so God can call us into the conversion equation and then graciously, through our relationship with God and others, change us. Preteens can embrace the gospel, but this moment of conversion should lead to a journey of ongoing transformation through the renewing of the mind. Welcome to the journey.
