I am not an emotional person. That doesn’t mean I am emotionless, that I feel nothing and exude a tough-guy persona that screams, “I’ll mock you, then take your candy if you cry in front of me.” I just mean that I don’t trust raw emotions. They are fickle and often lie. Still they play an undeniable roll in our spiritual journeys. We can look at Scripture and see a whole range of emotions connected with individuals’ spiritual growth and struggles. Peter alone experienced joy, anger, confusion, sorrow and regret as part of his journey with Jesus. Jesus on multiple occasions experienced emotion that drove Him to tears.

So naturally the toughest day for a student pastor who questions raw emotion is the last night (or sometimes first, just to keep things fresh) at camp, mission trip, retreat or conference weekend. If you’ve been on as few as one of these trips, you know what I’m talking about. Worship has ended — an hour later than scheduled — and the group is gathered in whatever tiny room your church has been given to gather in to debrief. You can sense it as soon as you walk in the room. Maybe a few of the girls (or guys) are sitting with puffy eyes, from the crying that has already been done. The rest are eerily silent (a moment you should stop and relish).

I just got back from a summer mission trip with middle school students a few weeks ago. This night was there waiting for me that week. I knew it was coming all day, and still I felt unprepared.  With just a slight nudge, a push in the right direction, the whole group could be in tears. All I needed was a few candles, maybe some towels for a foot washing; or we could go around and all speak words of affirmation to one another. Then at the right moment, a leader will slip out and come back with enough tissues to blow an elephant’s nose. I can certainly remember experiencing my fair share of these kinds of events as a student. This year, as always, I hesitated, unsure what to do. Maybe in spite of my uneasiness with emotion this was just how things are done. Maybe my own personality is getting in the way of providing an opportunity for spiritual growth in the group.

Still, I don’t push; I don’t nudge. Year after year, I don’t buy candles; I don’t pack extra towels. Don’t get me wrong — there is nothing wrong with using candles as part of worship. We do all the time, and I have nothing against foot washings or words of affirmation. However, I do want to guard against producing emotional, spiritual-high seeking and experience-driven faith in students. Let me explain what I mean.

Students, especially middle school students, are already emotional creatures. Puberty, mood swings and hormones have many of them in a place where their emotions constantly are betraying them; and they find themselves feeling a certain way without really understanding why. Group thinking also can sway them easily. If one individual in the group starts to cry, there will be another who looks up to them and will follow. By the time you have five or six criers, the whole group sees it as the thing to do in and joins them. Getting one crier is not hard. Camp is an overwhelming experience. At best, students have slept maybe six hours a night. Maybe. Considering most students sleep a solid 12 to 14 hours during the summer, this is a major change. By the end of the week, they are running on empty.  So it is easy for emotion to take over; suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of a very powerful, very tearful experience. However, here is the question: What does it accomplish? At the end of the night when everyone is cried out, how have we grown or taken another step in following Jesus? Too often I’m afraid we haven’t. Students may have made wonderful, huge spiritual commitments. The problem is they generally last about as long as the emotion does when we get home. Here are some issues I see with these emotional experiences.

Emotional experiences produce commitments that are overstated. When pushed toward emotionalism, students make overly dramatic spiritual commitments. Picture the scene where the entire group decides to rededicate their lives to Christ: Severn are sure they are called to ministry, and everyone is going to win 12 people to Christ in the coming month. Again, there is nothing wrong with rededications, calls to ministry or commitments to greater evangelistic efforts; but this is not where all of our students are. An emotionally charged experience tends to leave little room for students who feel they need to make a lesser commitment (i.e., to do daily Bible reading, praying for an enemy or loving a parent as Christ calls them to do).

Emotional experiences produce commitments that are short lived. Student pastors bemoan this fact every year. Students go to camp, get a spiritual charge; within a few weeks at home, if not a few days, it’s back to business as usual. What seemed to be a powerful spiritual experience turned out to be quite empty in terms of producing actual fruit, and it’s no wonder when the commitments they are making are so overstated and dramatic. I can’t help but wonder if we are part of the problem when we rely solely on emotional experience to build spiritual character.

Emotional experiences can produce unwarranted pride in ministry leaders. It feels like dramatic things are happening; and if I am being honest, it is very easy for me to fall into the trap of gaining my sense of worth from how fruitful my ministry is rather than Jesus.

So for the past few summers, as I have approached the dreaded last night, I have taken a different approach. In our group settings, rather than encourage an emotional outpouring as a whole, the question has become: What does the next step in following Jesus look like for you? Then I have sat and listened while students cried and shared how they were struggling with a call to ministry, which scared them. Furthermore, I have cried with a few; but I also have laughed and celebrated as they realized for the first time that God is bigger than they can fathom, yet loves them intimately. I have prayed with and struggled through tough questions about why God would let something happen. I have been able to encourage as they decided the next step is as tiny, yet important, as committing to daily Bible reading. Emotion has been and will continue to be part of all of our spiritual journeys; it is part of being human.

By not playing on sensitive emotions of overly tired, overly emotional students, we see more growth in discipleship. We see students making firm commitments that impact their lives as they return home and expressing them in terms that make sense to each of them. Sure they may seem to be baby steps, but they are steps they continue to walk in long after the trip ends, and that makes spending all that time with so little sleep worth it.