Adolescents growing up in today’s global world can send text messages to friends in Asia, watch worldwide events on their smart phones, and purchase the latest fashion from Australian companies—all while driving down a country road in Oregon.
Globalization and its pressing issues have deep ethical implications for youth, yet they’re seldom discussed in many of our youth ministries. If we’re truly committed to preparing students to live out their Christian faith in the 21st century, empowering students to respond to global issues in light of the gospel is essential.
The truth is, many youth care deeply about what’s going on globally. They understand better than most other generations in the church that today’s wants and needs can’t be viewed apart from those of the rest of the world.
Youth are often the ones teaching us that the shoes we wear, the foods we eat, the high-tech toys we buy and the companies in our towns are all intertwined with our fellow human beings living on the other side of the world. Many other institutions and leaders feed their interest, although more often than not the emphasis is on information and awareness with little opportunity for response.
Churches and youth ministries should be at the forefront of offering solution-oriented responses for how youth can make a difference in global issues, but how do we help them channel their enthusiasm and awareness toward living out the priorities of Jesus near and far? How can we better prepare them to connect their deepest longings and dreams with the world’s needs?
Both of us (Terry and Dave) have served in youth ministry for several years, and we’ve simultaneously devoted a great deal of time researching how best to help youth engage globally—whether that’s through a short-term mission program or through everyday choices they make in their own backyards.
We recently compiled our discoveries in our new book, What Can We Do? Practical Ways Your Youth Ministry Can Have a Global Conscience. We’re convinced youth leaders need to improve their level of global awareness.
At the same time, we understand the time pressures and realities of youth ministry don’t allow much time to read the latest issue of Foreign Affairs or The Economist. So, What Can We Do? gives youth workers a crash course on nine key global issues (poverty, social class, racism, technology, fundamentalism vs. globalization, environmental concerns, immigration, disease and human trafficking) with dozens of practical suggestions for how to respond.
To get started, here are five steps you can take to bring a more global perspective to your ministry:
1. Pray. It’s easy to overlook the essential, powerful role of prayer in making a global difference, but the New Testament shows how committed believers faced changing times. They truly believed God was supreme and capable of leading and acting. Cut out global articles from the newspaper; project BBC.co.uk/news/ on the screen and have students pray for some of the events occurring around the world this week; have them move to a virtual map on the floor and pray for different things going on in various places globally; or email the group that hosted you in on your mission trip last summer and ask what’s going on that you can pray about as a group.
2. Educate. Knowledge of the issues is important, but many global topics (i.e., immigration, environment, education, poverty and racism) have become so politicized and loaded with cultural bias that forming a Christian perspective can be difficult. However, there’s a growing number of other excellent resources that can help here, too. Many creative and respectful documentaries are being produced on various topics. You can commission your students to develop a short film themselves that teaches your group or your whole church about a particular issue. You won’t have to look far in most communities for groups devoted to various causes. Tap the expertise of these groups and help students gain a Christian perspective about how this aligns with being a follower of Jesus. Ask a counselor or local authority to speak to your students about the issues. Raise awareness in local schools, other churches and in your community.
3. Interact. It’s one thing to learn about global issues at arms’ length. It’s another to interact up close with those who have firsthand experience with an issue. Don’t ask them to speak for everyone who is struggling financially or everyone who is subjected to racism, but learn from their personal experience. Ask them about ways to get involved and make a difference. Also, ask them what NOT do to. This begins with us as youth workers. Seek a community of friends and ministry partners who come from diverse backgrounds—ethnically, denominationally, politically, professionally, etc. Rather than solely spending time with people who look like you, view the world like you and agree with you on every point, seek people who see things differently. Learn from them, and try to see the world through their eyes. You also may be interested in some of the resources Dave and his colleagues have developed to help improve the ways we interact cross-culturally at CulturalQ.com.
4. Advocate. You probably won’t need to advocate on behalf of kids whose parents are on the church board, but what about the kid who doesn’t have anyone sitting in a leadership circle? You can lead the way in advocacy by giving voice to adolescents who otherwise aren’t heard. Do you have an immigrant population that is largely ignored? Who supports the students at your local school who come from welfare homes and have no parents who will advocate for them? When you read of the unrest in northern Africa and the youth there who face a dire economic future, what do you teach your youth? The advocacy efforts of your ministry can take many different forms. “Send a letter; stop a genocide.” Sound too simplistic? Sen. Paul Simon said 100 letters to each member of Congress could have changed the outcome of the genocide in Rwanda. It’s easy to become jaded by politics, the media or large businesses; but we often abdicate the power we can have by failing to speak up for the causes important to us and equipping our youth to do the same. There’s even something to be said for respectfully applying pressure on parents and pastors to pay more attention to the global issues that desperately need the hope of Jesus.
5. Initiate. Youth groups have shown amazing abilities to raise money for mission trips, camps and amusement park adventures. Why not try putting some of that energy into helping a particular group of people in your own community. Sometimes as little as $35 can provide the funds needed to help a family start a business; or a student could challenge her peers to coordinate a concert to raise money for a particular cause. One local ministry has challenged adults to give one hour’s wages each month to help the homeless in their city. Everyone could do that! The key is to do something. You don’t have to take on every issue, but pick one. Pay attention to what tugs at the hearts of your youth. Pray about how God would have you get involved. Extreme poverty, sex trafficking and racism flourish when there is apathy or a sense that “our little efforts can’t do anything.” Feeling paralyzed by the enormity of the issues does nothing to help those in need. God is making His appeal through us to “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves…Defend the rights of the poor and the needy” (Proverbs 31:8-9).
History has shown we shouldn’t underestimate the tremendous power of youth to make a difference. Historically, when evil power is threatened, students are feared the most (think Berlin Wall, Tiananmen Square or Arab Spring, for example).
Your youth can make a global difference on behalf of Christ today, and by intentionally preparing them to respond thoughtfully to the global issues facing us, we can prepare them for a lifetime of global impact through their relationships, interests and careers.
Terry Linhart and David Livermore have co-authored What Can We Do? Practical Ways Your Youth Ministry Can Have a Global Conscience and co-edited Global Youth Ministry: Reaching Adolescents Around the World. Terry (TerryLinhart.com) teaches youth ministry at Bethel College (Indiana). David (DavidLivermore.com) writes about global leadership and cultural intelligence and leads the Cultural Intelligence Center in East Lansing, Michigan.
