The Youth Group Is So Immature…and That’s Okay

For the past few months, I have had the joy of teaching our teenagers on Wednesday evenings. As we gather for fellowship and Bible teaching, I have experienced a bit of joyful nostalgia from my days as the student pastor. While I am not the student pastor, I am the pastor of this local body of believers so that means I am the pastor for these junior and senior high students.

Much has changed since the 1990s when I began serving as the student pastor at our church. What has not changed is the need for teenagers to know God and to experience the Way, Truth, and Life offered only through Jesus Christ.

As we gathered on this specific Wednesday a few weeks back, we listened to some good music, played some games, laughed a lot and welcomed students to open their Bibles.

I instructed the students to open their Bibles to Ephesians 1 as we continue through a study on the prayers of Paul. We read the scripture and then we began to discuss the passage.

I then said something to our students that initially led some to give me a look of surprise, if not frustration.

I said, “You are all immature.”

Some laughed and others looked shocked. Several of the girls looked over to the boys and nodded their heads in agreement. So, not everything has changed in student ministry.

The fact is that our student ministry is full of immature teenagers, and that is okay.

There Are No Fully Mature Teenagers

Following decades of leading and serving alongside teenagers in our church, the truth is obvious. Regardless how mature a parent declares their child to be (most often phrased as “My child is much more mature than others his/her age”) the truth is there is simply no such thing as a fully mature teenager. 

Every single teenager in our student ministry and church is immature. Simultaneously, they are maturing. Not unlike all the adults in our church.

I explained this to our students. When children enter into the stage of maturation described as puberty, evident changes begin to occur. While the most notable may be physical, these changes also include mental, emotional, and spiritual as well.

Mentally, the brain is still working through the adolescent years to connect synapses. Other than the rare genius, an average eighteen-year-old can understand things a twelve-year-old cannot. That is why the math classes in seventh grade are a bit rudimentary when compared to advanced ones in high school.

The same is true emotionally. Teenagers are riding an emotional roller coaster. One day they’re happy. The next they’re depressed. One moment they’re chill and the next extreme. Other people impact their emotional health. Circumstances do as well. And while this does not automatically get easier in adulthood, in adolescence a young person is working through the changes that impact emotional health greatly.

Then there are the physical changes. Puberty begins at different ages for different children. Whether an “early-bloomer” or “late-bloomer,” male or female, these changes occur at different times and stages for each. That is why there are some eighth graders who look like college students and tenth graders who look like fifth graders. The changes are real and occur slowly and quickly throughout adolescence.

Also of note, the maturation of mental, emotional, and physical traits do not grow at the same rate.

So, what is the point? As believers in the family of God, within the local church, we must enjoy the journey of faith that is often realized when young people are being drawn by the Holy Spirit to salvation and maturity in faith. We must guard against falsely maturing up young people in our minds while simultaneously avoid offering a watered-down, childish, entertainment-focused version of Christianity.

This has always been a challenge, but perhaps now more than ever.

The Church of Today, Not Tomorrow

For decades I have heard people describe teenagers as “the church of tomorrow” and using that mantra as fuel for funding youth ministry and student activities. I actually do believe that funding and supporting ministry to and with teenagers is vital. I do not believe that it is a viable mission to provide a student ministry whose focus is experiential only with the motive to “keep the kids busy.”

While it can be true that our teenagers represent the “church of tomorrow” I refer to Proverbs 27:1 for a better understanding.

When a young person surrenders his/her life to Jesus Christ and is born again, then rightly baptized as a symbol of this new birth, he/she receives all the rights and privileges of a child of God. See Galatians 4:1-7.

That means a teenager does not receive a kids’ meal version of the Holy Spirit. Not unlike an adult who comes to Christ late in life, the fullness of the gospel is made evident in the new birth experience. New birth is just that…new. Thus, maturity (sanctification) begins immediately and is complete only at the moment of glorification.

Some espouse having a childlike faith as good, though that phrase is not in the Bible. Most often the reference is to Matthew 18:2-5. Even if childlike faith is acceptable, a childish faith is not.

There are no fully mature Christians here on earth, just maturing ones.

Thus, the teenage Christian is not the church of tomorrow, but the church of today. That does not mean that a thirteen-year-old should be ordained as a deacon or that the elders of a church should be freshmen in high school. It does mean that to equip and disciple well, the fullness of scripture must be taught, and the bar must be raised for what is expected of believers of all ages. This is not to say that age-graded curriculum is to be avoided. I think just the opposite (remember the example of math taught in junior high and high school.)

What being the church of today does mean is that teenage Christians who are maturing from childhood to adulthood can and should be taught the deep truths of scripture. They are in the process of putting away childish things (see 1 Corinthians 13:11.) As they are in this process, on a years-long journey, men and women of faith are to come alongside to lead, correct, teach, and model maturing Christianity. Ideally, this begins in the home, not in the church building.

The Danger of Remaining Immature

As I was wrapping up my teaching with our students, I offered this challenge. Since I am no longer in my twenties, I give off this “old guy vibe” with these students now. I’m not sure if that helps or not, but when I say “I have seen this for decades” at least there is a sense from their perspective it is likely true, since I have been around for many decades.

I challenged the Christian teenagers in the room (not all are believers who gather with us on Wednesdays) to not settle for superficial faith. If they do, then there is a good chance that one day when they are in their forties their teenager will come to them with a deeply challenging, spiritual question and they will only still have the “Sunday School answer” they have given since third grade. That answer may be correct, but it will not be enough. Seriously, no forty-year-old parent desires to be less mature than his/her thirteen-year-old, but spiritually speaking…this happens far too often.

This is not a shot at parents (at least not to all parents,) but to the local church who for decades may have settled into a system of Christian education that simply recycles facts, matures them just a bit as people graduate to the next level of age-graded ministry, but does little to aid in the spiritual maturation process. Spiritual maturity is a journey that is challenging, yet so rewarding. Is this not what disciple-making should be?

The church of today (which includes believers of all ages) is called and commissioned by God to bring him glory. This has been true for the church since the book of Acts. I am thankful to pastor a local church of maturing men, women, boys, and girls. May we continue to desire the meat of God’s Word and not simply settle for milk.

As for this gathering I led with our students on Wednesday, we opened the Word, studied the Word, asked hard questions, prayed for one another…and then played some ping pong and nine-square before all the parents came in to take their kids home. I mean…it is a youth group and it is not a sin to play a few games. It only becomes an issue if that is all we do.