Winter was brutal in Nashville this year. The cold was colder and longer than usual and had our whole town crying, “Uncle!” by mid-March. Spring never has been such a reprieve; and while there were multiple days of misery, the worst weekend was in early January.
On Saturday, they warned us to prepare on Sunday for Monday and Tuesday. (Southerners love to prepare for winter weather, y’all.) It was going to get cold—in the single digits—and stay that way for 48 hours. Our pets, children and houses don’t know what to do in such weather, so we must be warned and prepped.
The woman who lives in the apartment above mine was out of town, but I (naively) assumed that if I left my sinks dripping and my heat on, her pipes wouldn’t burst and fill my hallway and bathroom with a deluge of icy water.
Well…you can see where this is going.
Monday morning, for a full 20 minutes—between the initial burst and the maintenance team’s arrival—the water poured down from her apartment into my home at a rate that was almost comical. I used kitchen bowls and towels and large plastic containers until finally I gave up and allowed the water to flow, trying to enjoy my personal apartment-sized waterfall.
Finally, the water was turned off. It took a week for the guys to clean up and repair my home, with three rooms having the ceilings replaced completely. The maintenance guy brought me the length of pipe that caused the problem, about 6 inches long. I figured it burst from place and water gushed from either end. The guy corrected me, rolled the pipe around to show me a slice in the pipe about one-half inch long. If it were a human injury, a butterfly bandage would have done the trick.
“That?!” I asked with my eyes bugged out. “That is what ruined my home and my life for a week?”
“Yes ma’am,” he answered, “a tiny thing can make a big difference.”
Large Doors and Small Hinges
That’s true in my life, too…and in yours…and in the lives of students we serve. We want to impact their lives long-term; we want to point them to Christ and have them find their worth and identity in Him. We think long and hard about the Identity in Christ Retreat for next fall or the session at camp about finding your worth in Him (and not in the opposite sex or your talents on a football field or in a band).
It is said that large doors swing on small hinges. When it comes to how we speak into the identity of students, it doesn’t take much to make or break their hearts.
I sat on a panel at my church’s young adult gathering to address the topic of relationships among teenagers: a married guy, a divorced guy, a married couple and me (token single girl at your service; insert curtsy here). The few hundred students in the auditorium were given a phone number to which they could text questions anonymously about relationships, and we (with no more than a 5-second warning) would be attempting to answer them.
This is the church version of Russian Roulette.
Questions started slowly, but once the students realized it truly was anonymous, we never had a pause to breathe. Teenagers love to talk about dating and sex, that’s for sure.
About 20 minutes into the 30-minute session, a question popped on the screen that took my breath away. This is it as best I can remember:
I have this friend who is really pretty and really skinny. All the guys flock to her. I think I’m pretty too, but guys aren’t flocking to me. Why don’t I get attention from guys?
My insides shriveled up like a raisin. Everyone looked to me, the single girl on the panel, to answer.
I didn’t. I couldn’t. I froze. This question was unfortunately close to my own insecurities, so I let silence float awkwardly over everyone in the room until the question was answered poorly by another person on the panel and we moved to the next question.
The event ended. I got in my car and cried the whole drive home. I let her, the pretty girl brave enough to text in her honest question, walk out of that room doubting herself when I had the chance to speak into her place of pain from an all too familiar hurt of my own.
It wasn’t a big ask. It wasn’t as if the panel wanted me to share a 30-minute tale of my own insecurities and identity issues. No one was requiring I divulge my deepest worries. Had I answered, it would have been three sentences, maybe 30 seconds of my life, and I would have given her hope that she did not have.
Years later, I’m still sad that my cowardice kept me quiet.
It wouldn’t have taken much on that panel to swing the doors of her heart wide open and let the insecurities run out. What tiny thing could I had said that would have made a big difference?
We forget this view of identity when looking into the lives of students. Sometimes it’s not good versus evil, ugly versus pretty, smart versus dumb. More often, it seems to be good compared to best, smart competing with smarter, pretty looking at prettier. They aren’t always comparing themselves to their opposite, but are lining up next to their peers and grading themselves accordingly.
When I think of my life as a student in a youth group, I think of the conversations, the van rides, the brief moments that spoke into my identity: the phone call from a small group leader, the text from a friend, the youth pastor showing up at a soccer game or a band performance.
Your time matters. Your words matter. If we want to see our students find their identities in Christ, I think the repeated sowing of small seeds will reap a mighty harvest.
Speaking What Is True
A few months ago, I attended an event in rural Tennessee. It was a girls’ conference hosted by a small town Baptist church. Three high school juniors were in charge of the event. They went to the same school, but each attended a different church on different corners of this one-stoplight-kind of town. Sitting in a car one night together, they talked about how it would look to get all the girls in their community together for a one-night Christian event. Within six months, the event was planned, the church was decorated, the cookies were baked, and lots of adults were there to support their efforts.
About an hour before the event started, as the attendees began arriving, I met the host church’s pastor and youth pastor. Together, they came into the church parlor where the three girls and I sat. The pastor walked right up to the girls and said, “This night is going to be amazing no matter how many people show up. What y’all have planned is incredible. I’m really proud of you and the women of God you are. Thank you for doing this.” He hugged them, and the men walked out.
When the door closed behind them, one of the girls said, with excitement in her voice, “If this is what we can do as juniors, I wonder how much more we’ll do for God as seniors.”
My eyes filled with tears. That pastor had no idea the power he spoke into the identity of those girls. Though he didn’t hear her comment after he walked out the door, the depth at which his words implanted in their souls and his kindness shaped, molded and directed these girls.
We are puzzles, put together piece by piece by God through other people’s actions and words and the experiences we face in life. The pastor, in one short conversation, gave pieces to the lives of those young women, showing them a picture of how God could use them in the future. Identity in Christ, walking students toward finding their worth and joy in Him rather than worldly things, is about trading the wrong puzzle pieces for the right ones, replacing the broken ones with new, and inserting the right piece at the right time in the right place to show students their worth in ways they never have seen. We are invited into their lives, their conversations, the things that matter to them, to speak into who they are and what is true.
Plant Tiny Seeds
Students constantly are comparing themselves to each other and to the teenagers they see on Instagram, in magazines, across the lunch table…We have to quit telling them not to do that. Often, the teaching comes from the stage, pulpit or front of the youth room; we say, “Don’t compare yourself. God made you uniquely.” However, these words are generic, and the concept covers them like fog.
Instead, we must start planting tiny seeds in their hearts about their uniqueness specifically. Call out the things in them you see, including one sentence or passing moments, a song well-written, a game well-played, a friendship situation handled maturely, a budding interest in something a little off the wall (but a little cool, too). When we build up the unique, the need to compare falls away.
We know students are almost constantly thinking about the opposite sex. They are worried about how a relationship will work, if it will work, what they are allowed to do and what they aren’t, why she isn’t interested in him but why he is interested in her…the list is endless. The root of all the questions and worries: worth. In the end, they are asking, “Does anyone find me valuable?” So we, as the planters in their gardens, get to put down seeds of worth, remind them God made them each on purpose and they are highly valued in His kingdom. We get to remind students there are callings on their lives, and when our worth is found in who made us, the daily relationships take a backseat to the One that moves our lives.
More than ever before, students are hearing the message that they can be anyone they want to be, go anywhere they want to go, and have any job they want. This goes for males and females. “If you want to run for president, you can! If you want to run a marathon, run a company, or run to the ends of the Earth to tell people about Jesus, you can!” So we dig into that with them, plant tiny seeds of leadership opportunities and teach about calling. You open moments to lead for those in your group, calling on the high schoolers to lead the middle schoolers, asking the seniors to step up and help with worship, allowing students to share their testimonies. When you give them a chance to lead, even if it’s just a tiny seed, they will take it, and it will grow.
Don’t miss the chances you have to speak into who your students are becoming whether from stage, through social media or face to face. No conversation is wasted; no day in the garden goes unnoticed. You know the other puzzle pieces in your students’ lives: family issues, sporting dreams, musical skills, hopes and hurts in various forms.
Remember the life-shaping conversations from your days as a teenager? I do. I remember when my small group leader questioned the self-hate I spoke about myself. Your students will remember those conversations, as well. Remember how your life moved forward because of those conversations? I do. My heart was opened to the college I attended because an adult said, “I think Georgia could be a good fit for you.” Remember the statements that helped form your identity? The kids in your youth group are in the same place.
Remember Paul’s Words…
“So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are coworkers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building” (
We are coworkers, friends. We are the ones who plant, the ones who water, the ones who bring the truth of identity in Christ to the next generation. May God grow the work of your hands and may we see the next generation rise up in confidence as never before.
Annie F. Downs is a writer and speaker based in Nashville, Tennessee. An author of two books for young women, Perfectly Unique and Speak Love, Annie also loves getting to travel around the country speaking to teens and young adults. Read more at AnnieFDowns.com and follow her on Twitter.
