There’s been a lot of talk about the teenage brain in the past several years. Neurologists, psychologists and a host of other researchers are weighing in with vital information that could affect the way we do youth ministry. With so much information emerging from the laboratories of hospitals and universities, how do we know what to pay attention to and what to dismiss? Furthermore, how do we apply what we are learning about the teenage brain?
We gathered four youth workers and picked their brains (ha!) to discover what they’re learning about the teenage brain and how that information is affecting the work they do with students.
Gina Abbas has been in middle school ministry a little longer than The Tower of Terror has been open at Disneyland’s California Adventure Park. Gina traded in her Disneyland passes and California sunshine to move to Grand Rapids in 2013 to lead The Element Ministry (seventh and eighth grades) at Mars Hill.
Amy Jacober (Ph.D., MSW.) is a youth ministry veteran, professor and writer. Her interests revolve around marginalized communities, including those with disabilities. She is a founding member of the Sonoran Theological Group, as well as serves on Young Life’s Capernaum National Committee. Her most recent book is The Adolescent Journey. She spends most of her time serving her local church and playing with her three small children, husband and oversized dog.
Lars Rood is the family life pastor at Bellevue Presbyterian Church in the Pacific Northwest. He oversees the team ministering to children, youth and families from birth through high school. Lars is a speaker, writer and educator who has been involved in youth ministry for a very long time. After receiving an M.Div. from Fuller Theological Seminary, he went on to earn a doctorate at George Fox Seminary.
Rhett Smith (M.Div., MSMFT) is a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice in Plano, Texas. During his years as a seminary student at Fuller, he served as the pastor at Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles (2001-2008). Rhett is the author of The Anxious Christian and What It Means to Be a Man. He lives in McKinney, Texas, with his wife, Heather, and their two children. You can read more about his work at RhettSmith.com.
YWJ: Brain research has to do with a physical aspect of teenagers. Youth ministry focuses on the souls of teenagers. Why should youth workers care about teenage brain research?
Gina Abbas: The longer I was in youth ministry, the more obvious it was to me that so many of our students really didn’t have a lasting faith of their own. Even if our numbers looked great, I knew we were failing. This is when my husband (a teacher) came home with books about brain-based learning. I started paying a lot of attention to what teachers were doing based on brain-based research. I decided to learn everything I could about teenage brain research and how it could inform and change the way I do ministry.
Rhett Smith: The more work I do as a licensed marriage and family therapist, it has convinced me of the correlation between the physical and the soul. In his book Restoration Therapy, Terry Hargrave talks about how we essentially have formed a neurological rut between our feelings and our coping behaviors. To say it another way, when a person experiences a certain emotion, he or she responds in a certain way, often without much thought. Often their responses are physical in terms of movement. One might withdraw, become angry or start criticizing. We are captive to that neurological rut until we learn to do something different. This very much reminds me of the impulsive behavior of many teens who seem to be captive to their emotions. To do something different requires one to replace his or her feeling (emotion) with their truth (i.e., how they, others or God sees him or her).
Amy: James Loder offers a great object lesson for this topic. He describes the physical and spiritual as a mobius strip. Take a flat strip of paper and write soul on one side and physical or brain on the other. Now twist it once and tape the ends together. Place your finger on one of the words and trace the entire strip. You now can go forever on the exact same strip passing by the words on either side repeatedly without ever lifting your finger. It is impossible to determine exactly when you move from one side to the other as they are linked. While there is much to say about the soul and the brain, they are connected in ways we cannot always understand.
Lars Rood: I think the reality is that for so long we failed to take into consideration the body/brain as we engaged students’ souls. The reality for most of us in youth ministry is we don’t have a background in education, psychology or anything that gives us a better skill set to understand that it is very important to consider brain development when assessing students’ needs. On a practical level, we often fail to recognize the way we do ministry with older students and what we expose them to should be vastly different than what we do with sixth graders. Unfortunately, more often than not, many of us have ended up doing what’s easiest and repacking ministry experiences without taking into consideration what their brains can handle.
YWJ: How much of what we do in youth ministry should be informed or guided by neurological research?
Gina: For me, the more I know and read about neurological research, the more I can let it inform how I do ministry. If I am clueless about neurological research or haven’t kept up on the latest findings, it’s similar to handing a CD to your teens, ignorantly expecting them to listen to it when most don’t have a CD player in their cars, homes or on their computers these days. It would be more effective to share a Spotify playlist instead. You can’t implement or take advantage of what you don’t know.
Rhett: My hope is that more and more youth workers become aware of neurological research, not only for the sake of their own youth, but so they can become aware of their own patterns of behavior that influence how they act and react to the youth they see regularly. If I as a youth worker have a clearer understanding of how my brain works and impacts me, then I might do a better job of understanding the developing brains of teens and how they’re impacted.
Amy: We must pay attention to brain research because it allows us to be better youth workers. When we are talking about passing on faith, there may not be only one right way, but there are many wrong ways. What we teach matters, and the ability for adolescent brains to process what we teach impacts them for life.
We also get to make a positive difference in neural development. As the window of high activity reopens in early adolescence, youth workers can offer a message of hope and grace that is desperately needed.
Understanding brain development can help us choose wisely everything from how to teach a lesson to which activities are appropriate for them. We want to set them up for success, and for too long we had a skewed vision of what did and did not work.
Gina: I love what Amy said: “We get to make a positive difference in neural development.” Where there is potential for making a positive difference, there also is so much room for harm. I’ve been in youth ministry a long time, and I’ve seen a lot of damage when youth workers are oblivious to adolescent development and identity formation. There are still some well-meaning youth workers who don’t think to minister beyond a numbers-noses mentality. When we look to teenagers to meet our numerical benchmarks, it’s dangerous.
Lars: When I read Mark Oestreicher’s book Parent’s Guide to Understanding Teengage Brains, it really transformed my thinking. His research and the way he specifically spelled out what it means really hit me. With that said, I’m not going to spend a lot of time reading about brain research. I don’t have the time or desire to get into it as deeply as I should.
YWJ: In the National Geographic article “Beautiful Brains,” B.J. Casey, a neuroscientist at Weill Cornell Medical College says, “the more we learn about what really makes this period unique, the more adolescence starts to seem like a highly functional, even adaptive period.” Translate that into a youth ministry context for us.
Gina: I’ve seen this through crisis. Loss creates a sense of urgency paired together with intense emotion. Two high school students in our community passed away last week. One died of cancer, one was a hockey player with sudden heart failure. These past few days provided a beautiful glimpse into this highly functional, adaptive period of adolescence—students organizing carpools, making signs, decorating T-shirts, and doing whatever it took to get themselves to a championship hockey game two hours away. A student of mine got in her car and made the 2-hour drive by herself to be at the game. She didn’t ask for permission. She acted on impulse and showed up. Her parents were not thrilled, but this was a highly functioning teen in the midst of chaos.
Rhett: I love the beautiful story Gina shared. I have been witness to so many examples in my own ministry. When I was a college pastor, people often commented to me about the horrible state of youth and college students; but their statements never matched the reality I was experiencing in my day-to-day ministry with students. I saw students who cared for one another, encouraging those around them, and who often put their needs behind the needs of so many in our community.
Amy: I completely agree with Gina and Rhett. Adolescents are much more capable in crisis than most adults assume. I hear all the time that teens and youth ministry isn’t what it used to be—that we are in a state of demise and virtually a woe-to-us attitude. More often, I see highly adaptive teens. This is where I lean into the transformative power of Christ. I wholeheartedly believe Jesus is active in their lives and ours. We get to be a part of the active work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of adolescents. It is a privilege and keeps me going when it seems more like pushing a boulder uphill.
Lars: Gina nails it. Teens have a much better adaptability than we credit them. We shouldn’t be surprised. I recently was reflecting that my 8-year-old daughter is growing up in a vastly different world than her 10-year-old brother did. The opportunities, connections and expectations that I had for my son two years ago when he was 8 are so different than what I have for my daughter because the world has changed. Every period is unique, and the interaction of the individuals in it makes it more unique. We need to recognize in our ministries that our teens thrive on change and opportunities in their lives.
YWJ: How does teen biology affect faith formation? What can we expect regarding teenage spirituality?
Amy: First, our biological development opens the possibility for deeper faith formation, including in mundane things such as attention span to stamina for service. Within adolescent development, we often speak about the integration of disparate selves. This is only fancy talk for letting who you are become consistent across space, setting and time. In other words, who I am at church is the same as who I am on the field is the same as who I am in friendships. This is part of identity development. For teens, they can be in a space of loving Jesus and quoting Scripture at church, cussing like sailors and being down right mean on the field and having friends who get in trouble a lot. As the teen matures, these instances of being three different people shifts, and the goal becomes to be the same person in every setting…or at least within a range of being the same person. Where this touches spirituality…God is really important at church, but seems totally removed from dating or homework choices. As maturity sets in biologically, adolescents become aware of needing to stop living divided lives.
Rhett: This is a really tough question. The first thing that came to mind was
Gina: What Rhett said about Luke 2:52 is what came to mind first for me, too. I can’t help but see this passage as a reminder of pastoral responsibility to care for the whole person. This includes biological development as Amy mentioned. I would add that if identity formation is a blend of biology and environment, biology has a huge impact on faith formation.
Lars: I agree with Gina. Faith formation outside the whole of a person is too difficult. That’s unfortunately what so many parents expect though. They are comfortable putting faith in another category as they do tennis, piano, youth group, etc. We have to work hard to engage biology, development and growth as we engage spiritual formation.
YWJ: Given the research on the brain, what are the most effective ways to teach Scripture to students? What new opportunities are there for educating them?
Lars: Dialogue. We fail in the church when we turn learning into monologues. Yes, I’m fully aware I’m throwing stones at my own tribe of three-point-sermon pastors, but I don’t think it works for students. Dialoguing is a much better way for most of them to learn.
Rhett: Though this particular book was written with children in mind, I love strategy No. 6 in The Whole-Brain Child by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson in which they discuss the importance of story in brain functioning. They write: “Once again, one of the most effective ways to promote integration is to tell stories…Storytelling is also a powerful activity for integrating implicit and explicit memories” (p. 79). Teenagers learn the best when the biblical truth is embedded in story.
Gina: Similar to what Rhett was saying, we need to treat teenagers as emerging adults, not as children. When teenagers know you value and respect them, they are disarmed and more engaged with current circumstances. Teaching Scripture in more experiential and participatory ways; utilizing music effectively to control the emotional state of a room (not as manipulative, but as a learning tool); paying attention to sight, smell and sound; noticing how a room feels in regard to security and comfort; reducing threat or perceived threat, such as how welcoming your youth group rally is all can make a huge difference in how effectively you teach Scripture. If a student doesn’t feel safe or comfortable, it doesn’t matter how awesome your teaching is.
Amy: I definitely think preaching. Jesus preached. That said, Jesus did so sparingly. There are times when information needs to be put out there. The brilliance of transformation is that there is no one right way. For teenagers, conversations, relationships, music, action, case studies, role playing, making videos, playing games and plain old hanging out are all opportunities for learning. There is direct curriculum, the content you want someone to know; then there is the content that is taught through omission, tone of voice, respect, informal conversations, repeated themes, etc. Not talking about something can be just as telling as talking about something in the life of an adolescent.
YWJ: What other physiological or psychological changes are you noticing among students? How have these changes affected student ministry?
Rhett: I see a growing desire among my teenagers to feel connected to others and really be known by others. I think this desire has increased more rapidly in our hyper-connected world of technology. The work of psychologist and social constructionist Kenneth Gergen was helpful to me in how he discussed the saturated self. His theory is that in the formation of relationships, people often use mediating technologies. He explains, “For as new and disparate voices are added to one’s being, committed identity becomes an increasingly arduous achievement.” So a big shift I see is that teenagers are having a harder time developing a deep sense of self…or to bring it back full circle to our first question…developing a truth about who they are, which is essentially a soul question.
Amy: I increasingly love the notion of reciprocal socialization. This is the simple idea that we influence one another. To pull this back to brain development…it is widely accepted that the prefrontal cortex develops in the early 20s. This prefrontal cortex often was seen—and in recent years used—in youth ministry to talk about the crazy choices teens make; it is the decision-making area of the brain. However, the crux isn’t solely about making good or bad decisions. Rather, we can evaluate risks and rewards in decision making. The young whose brains aren’t yet developed fully invite the rest of us to consider the amazing spaces into which God may be calling us. The more mature in a given community must walk with the young to offer wisdom to temper their choices.
Lars: Students are growing up earlier as they have access to information and technology. It opens their world wider more quickly than any of us experienced. As a result, they are less sheltered and more experienced and knowledgeable at a younger age. The unfortunate reality is that we haven’t figured out what it means. The best way I can describe this is it is very scary to think about the idea of dating as a seventh grader now. When I was younger, we might see each other at school and possibly talk on the phone at home in the evenings, but now students literally can stay connected all day via phone, text, IM, Facebook, etc. The ability to connect and go deep quickly has shifted what the word dating means. The reality is in a weeklong dating experience, in which you are connected 24/7—you actually might have spent more time engaging with each other than I would have in a six-month period when I was in seventh grade. That’s a scary implication for youth ministry.
Gina: Risk. As youth pastors we can leverage a teenager’s natural inclination to take risks. Looking at risk differently has affected my student ministry in great ways. To attend a wilderness adventure camp, to take students to Skid Row in Los Angeles to serve, to speak in front of class, to get on stage and share a testimony, to participate in a variety show and do something embarrassing…Seeing risk as an asset in youth ministry or as a reason to keep (or get rid of) certain things on our youth ministry calendar has been huge for me.
