Meet the Roundtable:

DALLAS WILLARD describes spiritual growth as an“increased consistent character and power for goodness.” On the flip side is what Willard calls spiritual drift. “Unless we build intentional practices toward spiritual growth, we drift,” says Willard, a bestselling author, spiritual formation guru and professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California. His latest book is The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’ Essential Teachings on Discipleship. How can youth workers avoid spiritual drift and motivate young people toward true spirituality? That’s one of the questions we asked Willard and these other experts:

DOROTHY BASS is the co-author of Receiving the Day: Christian Practices for Opening the Gift of Time and the director of The Valparaiso Project on the Education and Formation of People in Faith in Valpraiso, Indiana.

MICHAEL CAROTTA is an author who teaches graduate courses on adolescent spirituality at several Catholic universities and is the author of Sometimes We Dance, Sometimes We Wrestle: Embracing the Spiritual Growth of Adolescents.

PATRICIA HENDRICKS is the executive director of Christos Center for Spiritual Formation in St. Paul, Minn., and author of Hungry Souls, Holy Companions: Mentoring a New Generation of Christians.

MIKE KING is founder and president of YouthFront Ministry in Kansas City, Mo., and author of Presence-Centered Youth Ministry: Guiding Students Into Spiritual Formation.

We asked our panel of experts these five questions:

• How do you define healthy spiritual growth amongyoung people?

• What markers can youth workers observe to help themevaluate spiritual growth of young people?

• How much success are youth workers experiencing inthe area of spiritual growth among young people?

• What strategies can youth ministry leaders employto improve their discipleship ministries?

• What resources would you suggest that leaders useto engage young people in spiritual growth?

Here’s what they told us.

Slow Down, You Move Too Fast

“Young people who seem most spiritually healthy to me,”says Dorothy Bass, “are those who can accept that God loves them, personally and individually.”

 Bass also notes that spiritual maturity leads to recognizing that God loves others. Spiritual health in our lives is marked by a willingness and desire for God to express His love for others through us. “Concern for the self—what I will do, who I will be, will I be loved, et cetera—is very natural at this stage of life; but this concern becomes healthy when it is met and matched by a concern for others,” she says. Bass says some people measure success by outward signs of being religious. Others focus on service, with less “slowdown time” for God. “I’d look for a dynamic back-and-forth between these dimensions,” she says.

When considering discipleship strategies, Bass believes that—especially for college students—vocation is a big question that can be engaged in very faithful and challenging ways. “By vocation,” she explains, “I don’t just mean what to major in and what job to pursue. The first and most important vocation of every Christian is to follow Christ into a lifetime of love for God and neighbor.”

Bass points out that it is important to see that one does not have to become a full-time youth minister or evangelist to be following Christ into a world in need.

Other strategies she mentions include surrounding young people with good conversation partners (ministers and mature Christian laypeople); providing experiences in the real world; and inviting them to slow down and bring the concerns they encounter into God’s presence through prayer, Bible study, and spiritual friendship.

Developing 3-D Spirituality

Michael Carotta perceives spirituality among adolescents as three dimensional.

“Some kids have a highly vertical spir­ituality,” he explains. “They invest most heavily in their personal relationship with the transcendent God.” These kids might describe their relationship with God as being “tight.”

Other adolescents possess a more hori­zontal spiritually. These kids “focus on the moral life: treating others fairly, being kind, and honest.” Horizontal spirituality develops a keen interest in service.

A third dimension of adolescent spiri­tuality is internal. These young people are focused on issues such as happiness, peace, anger, and depression.

Carotta wonders how our ministries with young people could be enhanced if we intentionally addressed all three dimensions and helped kids “identify for themselves the dominant dimensions of their own spirituality.”

Recent research tells us that 80 percent of young people express a belief in God, say they pray, think there is a heaven, and believe they’re going there. Since such a large percentage of the young people we work with have already accepted these aspects of the faith, Carotta urges youth workers to “lead young people to discover the difference between being a believer and being a disciple.”

Using the analogy of the seed in the Gospels, Carotta advises us to “focus on what to do when the seed has already taken root.”

Carotta likes what consultant/writer Sharon Parks says about how a “holding environment” can be the essential resource for discipleship. He says this is a “trustworthy place where kids can do the intimate and often difficult work of examining their perspectives, consider­ing their blind spots, evaluating their choices, rethinking their ambitions, learning from failure, and remembering their soulful promise to God to become.”

Riding Out Seesaw Spirituality

Patricia Hendricks is cautious about attempts to evaluate spiritual growth. Youth workers should “nurture rather than evaluate,” she says. She envisions a youth worker who spends time listening to young people (with openness and with­out judgment) and modeling an authentic Christian adulthood.

Hendricks describes adolescence as a time of “seesaw spirituality.” She notes that the teen and young-adult years are a time to “try on adulthood.” Influenced by the roller-coaster emotions of frustration, fear, confusion, and anger, “a young person may believe in a certain doctrine one minute and reject it in another,” she says. The healthy benefit to this, she observes, “is that a young person claims for herself or himself some core beliefs.”

As to success, Hendricks prefers the word faithful to describe successful youth ministry. “To me, the word success is a business term. It involves numbers and marketing and sales. The word faithful, however, is about conducting ministry to the best of one’s ability, praying often, and having faith that Jesus will work all things for good.”

Youth ministry in today’s society is “complex and sometimes beyond our ability to comprehend,” says Hendricks. “The ministry of prayer places the burden of ministry on God.” Hendricks believes that in praying, living in a healthy relationship with God and others, and seeking balance in our lives, the strategies or methods of doing youth ministry will be evident.

When considering resources for ministry, Hendricks cautions against “excessive use of ‘canned’ programs. I invite youth workers to trust their own instincts.” Further, she warns youth workers to avoid the temptation to simply try to duplicate the successes of the church across town.

Entering a Grace-Filled Environment

Mike King notes that although a large majority of adolescents are disengaging from the formal church, they are interested in spirituality.

“The number of adolescents who pray and read Scripture is relatively high,” he says. King believes that, “spiritual growth happens when a student is placed in a grace-filled environment, an environment in which adolescents are surrounded with loving, supportive people who help them get back up when they’ve fallen and start walking with Christ again.”

Two problems King sees are an over-dependence on programs and too much attention to behavior modification. “It’s about relationships with God and mentors in a grace-filled environment.” He explains that, “Youth ministry is also a theological endeavor; those who under­stand this are successful.” King points out that if allowed to talk about theology, young people are captivated by it.

“Asbury Theological Seminary’s Robert Mulholland defines spiritual trans­formation as ‘the process of being formed in the image of Christ for the sake of others,’ ” says King. “What if the markers of spiritual growth were things like, how many kids are working to clean up the environment, working for justice, or feeding the hungry? Many youth want to change the world, and we’re content to give them a slice of pizza.”

King exhorts youth ministers to pray for adults to rise up who have a calling to work with youth; to train workers; to build an environment in which people listen; to plan for theological discussions; to teach youth how to interact with Scriptures; and to help youth match the passion of adolescence with the passion of Christ.

King recently interviewed over 100 young people who communicated that what they want most in a youth minister is someone who loves God. They considered this much more important than having creative ideas.

The Central Resource: Scripture

Dallas Willard points to character as crucial to spiritual growth.

“Character,” he defines, “is the inward organization of the self, in which thoughts, feelings, planning, and even bodily tendencies are drawn together toward a consistent direction.”

One marker that Willard believes demonstrates the evidence of spiritual growth in a person’s life is “appreciating the goodness of rightness.” This means we consider it right, for example, to be sexually pure. “We choose rightness because we know how good it is; it’s not just some­thing we feel obligated to do.” (Willard adds that “as people grow into adolescence, they consider rightness as a conspiracy to keep them from having fun.”)

Standing up for what is right is another marker of spiritual growth. He includes such actions as witnessing and speaking up for truth as examples.

Willard suggests that there are two issues in the church that impact youth ministry. Legalism is one of those issues. “We should avoid legalism like the plague, especially when ministering to young people.” While legalism may keep youth out of trouble, in the long run it develops dangerous spiritual attitudes.

Another issue centers on the pulpit, which Willard believes “is to be the center of the ministry in the church.” He says that “the pulpit must teach what grace is, what spiritual growth is, what the kingdom of God is.” He is afraid that many pulpits don’t teach this.

Willard encourages youth ministers with two key strategies. First, youth workers must identify what are the real issues in the minds of young people by getting to know the popular arts, which are the most powerful influencer in the lives of young people. Willard believes that youth leaders cannot afford to hide behind pious notions that restrain us from listening to and observing the art forms that control the inner lives of today’s adolescents.

Secondly, youth workers must learn to be good listeners. A good listener is one who is “at peace, is not manipulative, and knows that God is in charge of the con­versation.” Willard urges youth ministers to listen to youth in small groups and one-on-one, where the deepest level of conversation is more likely to happen.

The central resource for spiritual formation is Scripture. “We must make the Bible come alive to young people.” Regarding this, Willard suggests two resources: lectio divina and teaching the spiritual disciplines. (Lectio divina is an ancient practice of reading Scripture that incorporates prayer, meditation, and contemplation.)

Youth ministers today have an opportunity to change the course—set new sails, so to speak. But Willard warns youth ministers that they will meet a lot of opposition. Spiritual formation “changes people, and many people don’t want to change; they want to stay the same. But when you teach the right things, the effect always comes through.”

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David Crim is a freelance writer.