How does a youth worker instill in adolescents a deep, passionate, transformative and lifelong love for God? We (the Church of the Nazarene in Molalla, Ore.) believe teens must first grasp the concept of love in their own lives before they can truly love God and others as Christians.
That’s why our youth ministry developed a three-part teaching program based on Dr. Gary Chapman’s books on our love languages. The three parts, which can be explored in six to 12 weeks, are:
1. My Love Language
2. Why God Created Us
3. Loving God with My Love Language
Chapman argues that whether we’re talking to God or He’s speaking to us, we experience Him most significantly through our primary love language. As we have seen, youth who learn to love God using their love languages experience a growth inwardly (love of God) and outwardly (love of neighbor).
Here’s how we approached this material with our group. Feel free to adapt this to your group’s needs.
Part One: My Love Language (three to five weeks)
The outward cry of most teenagers is, “You don’t understand me!” The inward cry is, “Love me!” Love is our deepest emotional need. We feel love and are drawn to others when they speak love in a way we understand. This same principle applies to the most important relationship—our relationship with God.
Teens can learn to love God better when they comprehend the premise of the five love languages. In a small group setting, using Chapman’s book The Five Love Languages of Teenagers we begin by helping each teen identify his or her primary love language.
Chapman’s premise is that every person functions best when speaking or using his or her primary love language. It’s how our love tanks are filled. When our love tanks are full, we operate at peak performance. When we are operating at peak performance we can love God more fully. Our first objective is to teach youth to understand how God wired them individually to fill their love tanks. Here are examples expressed by several teens:
1. Words of Affirmation: “I feel especially loved when I’m told I did a good job. I feel encouraged when people express that I can be whatever I choose to be and when they tell me how grateful they are for me.”
2. Quality Time: “I feel especially loved when I get undivided attention, when Dad takes me to a game and when a person is really there for me.”
3. Receiving Gifts: “I feel especially loved when I receive a gift that interests me or a person asks me to pick out a gift that expresses love.”
4. Acts of Service: “I feel especially loved when someone helps me with something I’m having a hard time doing myself or when my mom helps me with homework and picking out what to wear.”
5. Physical Touch: “I feel especially loved when dad and I wrestle in the basement or my sister gels my hair or Mom gives me a back rub.”
As teens become more comfortable with understanding their own love languages, we encourage them to work on filling their family members’ love tanks and then their friends’. They experience blessings when they fill someone else’s love tank because they are fulfilling God’s command; thereby, their love tank is filled.
Part One can be done in three to five weeks. A smaller group may be able to cover two love languages in one session. Our church chose to teach and explore one love language each week.
Part Two: Why God Created Us (one week)
The second objective is to take the information about love languages and apply it to loving God. We crafted a message around why God created human beings: “The chief end of man is to serve God and enjoy Him forever” (Shorter Westminster Catechism).We ask, “What does that mean to you?” The rest of the message centers on
1. Matthew 22:36-39: The Pharisees asked Jesus, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'”
2. Love and know intimately the only true God and His Son, Jesus Christ. We want teens to desire a closer, more intimate relationship with God.
3. Enjoy healthy relationships with others. God is love. As image bearers of God, we have the ability to love His created—with our primary love language. When we find a person or group committed to authentic relationships and loving God, we find God and something very beautiful.
4. Leave our mark on the world.
Teens must acknowledge their purpose is not to copy or out-do the next person or become famous and accumulate wealth. Only one Person can guarantee real success—day after day. As they come to know Jesus on a personal level, learn to fix their thoughts on Him and express godly love to others, they will become difference makers.
Part Three: Loving God with My Love Language (two to five weeks)
The third objective is for the teen to discover how he or she can use his or her primary love language to love God, while at the same time learning God loves them unceasingly through all five love languages. It is a means to identify with Him.
1. Words of Affirmation
The Bible is filled with multitudes of illustrations and images of God speaking this love language. King David expressed his love for God and filled the psalms with words of praise, thanksgiving and adoration. There are many songs in the Bible that express the writer’s love toward God. The apostle Paul affirmed his love for God in his letters. Youth can express in their prayer time their own private words of affirmation; or they may read a heart-felt psalm or other Scripture to God; or meditate on personal, inspirational Scriptures to them from God.
2. Quality Time
In the Bible we see God spending quality time with His people. The psalms speak of His desire to draw near and spend time with His children (for example,
3. Receiving Gifts
God speaks the love language of gift-giving fluently (for example,
4. Acts of Service
For examples of God’s acts of service, all we have to do is look at the life of Jesus. His three-year ministry was filled with this love language. God expressed this by sending His Son Jesus, who in turn expressed His love by performing the ultimate act of service—giving his life for our sins. His own death was the supreme act of showing His love for us.
A teen’s act of service may mean taking the time to listen to a friend who is hurting, helping a sibling with a tough homework assignment, going on a mission trip or participating as a leader in youth ministry. We want to encourage every teen to volunteer and explore different opportunities. By volunteering, they will see the world differently through the eyes of people less fortunate.
5. Physical Touch
Evidence that God loves us through physical touch is apparent.
Those whose primary love language is physical touch often speak of feeling God’s presence. Some say they actually can feel God embrace them. They have been spiritually touched by Him. Youth love God through appropriately touching others. They hug, help, lay hands on and hold one another up in prayer. They imagine themselves crawling into and resting peacefully in God’s lap.
Whether God is loving us or we are loving Him, most often a person will feel God’s love and presence most strongly in one particular way because we are all created uniquely. By teaching teens to tap into that divine love through their love languages, we can help them relate to God in a way that will totally revolutionize their will to love Him and one another. We want youth to experience His far-reaching love and release it to others, filling everyone’s love tanks!
Kimberly Davidson is a certified biblical counselor and coach, speaker and founder of Olive Branch Outreach—a ministry dedicated to bringing hope and restoration to those struggling with body image. She received an M.A. in specialized ministry from Western Seminary, Portland, Oregon. She volunteers in student ministries and youth education outreach. She is the author of four books, including Torn Between Two Masters: Encouraging Teens to Live Authentically in a Celebrity-Obsessed World.
