My wife recently took our daughters to see The Nutcracker. It’s become a tradition in our family…for the girls, that is. They get dressed up, go out to dinner with some friends and then enjoy the ballet. It’s something they really look forward to each year.

My wife was telling me about how much fun they had and then told me something my 5-year-old daughter, Karis, said to her about a half hour into the ballet. It blew my mind.

Karis said, “Mommy, I have to go potty. Can you pause it?”

What? Pause the ballet? Wow. She had no idea if she was watching a screen, live TV or a ballet. She’s always been able to pause television; so, I guess, who could blame her for the assumption she was making? Hitting pause has been a luxury she didn’t know how to operate without in her life. She expected to be able to pause, go to the bathroom and not miss a beat.

This is cute for a 5-year-old, but such expectations is a reality for all of us, especially younger generations. I enjoy technology as a 38-year-old man, and in many ways my life can’t operate without it; but technology didn’t shape my thinking the way it has for younger generations.

I’ve found that technology has shaped college-aged people in some ways that should change how we approach relationship drastically with them. If we don’t take these to heart and adjust how we approach them, we’re in big, big, big, big trouble. Perhaps the biggest area we must take notice of is how technology has changed their expectations.

Sure, it’s changed their expectations with how fast they obtain information, and technology certainly has made the world smaller. However, in my opinion, the thing we really need to take notice of is how much they expect to have a voice in things.

Think about it. They never have not had a voice. They always have posted comments on blogs or articles when they had an opinion. If they see something that interests them, they write about it on their personal blogs, post links on Facebook or post videos explaining their views. They always have had a voice; therefore, they expect to have a voice in just about everything. Truthfully, who can blame them? It’s all they’ve known.

It’s hard for older generations to grasp this idea as being appropriate, but it’s the reality in our world today. We must give younger people a voice in our ministries. If we don’t, we will lose them. We will lose their trust. We will be viewed as controlling. We will be seen as stifling them. So, here are two quick ideas of how to go about that:

Cut off your toes. What I mean by this is make sure people know they’re not going to step on your toes by sharing their honest opinions. Continue asking what people think about your ministry. Let them know there are no sacred cows. Ask them to tell you what they would do differently if they were you. Ask them what they think you should be doing next. Ask them to tell you what they think is not working.

Open your ears. The truth is the more we open our ears and listen to our students, the more they ask for us to open our mouths to share our perspective. If we want to have a voice in their lives, we must first listen to theirs.