“We aim high with what we teach,” the camp director told me with a straight face. Then he got nasty. “Don’t you believe in challenging them? What’s the matter with you?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and I couldn’t believe what I had read. I had just endured a horrific small group time with some incoming eighth-grade boys and decided to approach the camp director with my concerns about the contents of the Bible study he had provided.

Part of the study was titled “Gnostics, Docetism, and the Fullness of Christ.” It was followed by the most complex theological jargon I’ve seen outside of seminary. My 13-year-olds sat on their top bunks muttering, “Gaknowsticism?…Dockatism?…”

I was angry. Do middle schoolers really need to understand Docetism? Is this where kids are in their respective spiritual journeys? I was quickly accused of “watering down the gospel,” which is the favorite accusation of anyone too lazy to put the message of Christ in adolescent language. I asked the camp director, “Explain this section to me. What does it mean in your own words?” “I’d have to think about it,” he replied. Enough said.

This experience helped me identify a danger in teaching. Our teaching often reflects our efforts to make us feel good about ourselves by impressing our adult peers, rather than listening to and responding to the world of kids. Why else would someone put this paragraph on Gnosticism in a Bible study for middle schoolers?

Rather than teaching so they can hear us, we teach so we can hear praise from parents, volunteers, and our bosses. “Look at the depth I’m providing these kids,” we say. Meanwhile, kids are starving for something they can grasp onto about Jesus Christ.

As a result, I began to critique every aspect of how we were “teaching” kids in our youth ministry, with the goal of eliminating anything that was not designed for kids.

This is no small task — teaching goes far beyond “talks.” We are always teaching, whether we realize it or not. The messages we unknowingly send with our volunteers, programming, music, games, and the “feel” of our ministry can either support or unintentionally undermine the message of Jesus.

An example was a song that our ministry had sung before we realized it was counterproductive to our goal. These were the lyrics:

Don’t get me wrong — the song is biblical (it paraphrases 2 Corinthians 4). I like its message. But it became clear one night while watching our kids sing that none of them knew what the song meant. We were singing the song because leaders liked it — not kids.

Please understand what goes on in kids’ minds when we put our adult tastes in front of their needs. Kids are consciously or subconsciously processing, This song must be normal for me to understand since my youth leaders are having us sing it. Is there something wrong with me because I don’t get it? Or This church stuff doesn’t make sense.

This is only one small example of how we constantly send messages that teach kids to simply “go through the motions” and “play church.” All from a song!

Two voices compete for our teaching. One voice says, “Teach so adults will be impressed and happy with you.” The other is the voice of kids calling, “Teach me so I can understand.” To which voice will we respond?

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Jim Candy has served for nine years as the director of middle school ministries at First Presbyterian Church in Boulder, Colo., and spent seven seasons announcing professional sports for the Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets.