All of us—adults and kids—have had the gospel of the American Dream pounded into us from the day we were born. This gospel’s creed reads “Get your eyes on yourself! Get rich! Get stuff! Get happy!”
One sunny Labor Day several years ago, I had the opportunity to go boating with a group of high schoolers in the clear blue waters off the coast of Miami. We enjoyed the beautiful weather while swimming and skiing off the back end of a pretty impressive boat that belonged to the father of one of my youth group students. When it was his turn to ski, he dove into the water then resurfaced. He leaned back and let out a comfortable sigh. “Ahhhh,” he said in a mocking and arrogant tone. “I wonder what the poor people are doing today.”
When it comes to integrating their Christian faith into the material and financial parts of their lives, our Christian kids (and many of us) are having difficulty. I’ll never forget something Kenneth Kantzer wrote almost 20 years ago that hit the nail on the head: “The most serious problem facing the church today is materialism—materialism not as a philosophical theory, but as a way of life.” Two decades have passed and it hasn’t gotten any better.
What can we, rich leaders of rich kids, do to undo these dangerous and disobedient attitudes? I fully recognize these are complex, deep-seated problems rooted in our sinful hearts that have taken years to learn. I don’t think there are easy answers, but I do believe they are issues that can and must be addressed in youth ministry with a sense of deep urgency. Here are some suggestions to help undo what’s been done.
Teach About the World’s Need
“Out of sight, out of mind” might be the cliché that best describes one cause of my own personal history of ignorance. During my childhood, poverty was something that flashed past outside my rolled-up and locked car window as our family ventured from our comfortable and cloistered enclave in the suburbs on a trip through inner-city Philly. The slums were never our destination. They were simply a dangerous place to pass through quickly on a direct route somewhere else. The only emotion I remember feeling was relief—relief that we were finally out of there and that I lived somewhere else.
Helping the kids you know and love break free from their ignorance and cultural captivity can only begin when you’ve taken deliberate steps to do the same. Books, the Internet and visits all should be utilized to open your eyes to the world’s need.
Get to Know God’s Heart
Bob Pierce, the founder of World Vision, couldn’t help but start his relief organization after praying his now legendary prayer: “Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.” The Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation reveal what lies at the heart of God. Six little words from
God’s great unfolding drama of redemption is all about righting the wrongs that sin unleashed on the world. Things are not the way they are supposed to be. As God reveals Himself in the Scriptures, we can’t help but see His heart for the poor and desire for justice. Instead of reading the Scriptures for the sole purpose of understanding what it means to be born again, we must read to understand what it means to live as one born again.
Immerse yourself in God’s Word and it will transform you into a person who seeks first the Kingdom. Teach your students the same. God calls us to meet the world’s deep need by being agents of Shalom wherever Shalom has been destroyed.
Teach Them the Truth
Let your students know they are rich— and what their Heavenly Father has to say about that. I grew up thinking I was poor. There were numerous reasons for that, the most basic being that I saw myself as having less than those who had more rather than one who had more than those who had less. Then I learned my position if the world’s population was lined up from richest to poorest. I, you and all of our youth group kids most likely would be in the top 2 percent of the line.
We’ve been fooled, and we’ve been fooling ourselves if we think we’re poor. Bottom line is this: We’re rich. Once you’ve communicated that fact to your kids, spend some time looking at what the Old and New Testaments have to say about the dangers of wealth and the God-given responsibilities of the wealthy.
Challenge Parents to Raise Godly Children, Not Royalty
I’ve worked with parents for years. I am a parent myself. I know full well that in our North American culture our tendency to idolize our kids does great harm. We want them to have, do and be more than anyone else. We’ve created a culture of childhood royalty by treating our children like princes and princesses, a step that creates a lifelong sense of entitlement that’s very hard to break.
Expose parents to the world’s need, God’s heart for the poor and a knowledge of the cultural pressures that facilitate selfishness, materialism and narcissism. If we are raising our kids to worship the holy trinity of me, myself and I, their eyes never will see beyond themselves to the world’s need.
Teach Them to Send
In his wonderful, little book, Don’t Waste Your Life, John Piper reminds young readers that missions isn’t only about going but about sending. Our kids need to know there is nothing wrong with money and wealth. However, much is required from those who have been given much.
How can your group support global missions and justice through their prayers and giving? Give them opportunities to do both. Adopt missionaries to pray for and support. Have your group and individual kids sponsor a Compassion or World Vision child. Let them know their money is used by these organizations to “send” nationals who are committed to facilitate the spread of the gospel and the doing of justice in ways that foster independence rather than dependence.
Take Them and Go
Mission trips have become a staple of youth ministry programming, but I’m not sure we always choose, plan and implement trips in ways that bring about lasting change for those who are sent or for those to whom we go. Still, that’s no excuse to stop going. Instead, we should 1) examine our mission trips in great detail to see how to be good stewards of these opportunities, and 2) cut the entitlement-feeding stuff from our programming (expensive winter ski trips, etc.) and funnel our youth ministry time into radical giving.
Let’s pray that the emerging generation will break the patterns we’ve set and live to embrace the calling of Christ rather than the false gods of comfort, security, control and success. Furthermore, let’s do all we can to make that happen.
