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Changing the Tags

By Jeanne Mayo

The rumors you may have heard are true. At the Mayo home it is not uncommon to have all the living room furniture on our front lawn, so there is space for the trampoline in our living room. Teenagers from my youth group pile into our home to do hysterical exploits on the trampoline (we have high ceilings). It is not even uncommon for some of the more daring teenagers to jump from the balcony overhead onto the trampoline. That same living room floor space is also the sight of sumo-wrestling competitions, midnight-Communion sharing, Christmas parties in July, and hundreds of heart-to-heart talks.

I probably need to answer the unspoken question. After three decades in youth ministry and with a pretty decent-sized youth outreach, shouldn’t someone else run the trampoline-and-sumo moments? My answer is a resounding, "No." My personal philosophy is that when I’m out of the trampoline-and-sumo moments, I am out of true youth ministry.

Early in my ministry I scribbled down a quote that has been crucial in my own youth ministry philosophy. It reads: "He who spends the most time…wins." Simply put, this youth culture will not be permanently impacted for Christ apart from the investment of personal relationship and time. I recall the first time it dawned on me that teenagers in my group rarely remember the messages I spend many prayerful hours preparing. After I’d been in ministry for only a year, a young teenager said, "Face reality, Jeanne. We don’t remember much of anything you preach. We just remember how you treat us. So your job is really simple. Just make usthink you really like us, and everything spiritual will fall into line."

Granted, the young man’s theology was a little twisted. But using his words as a springboard, allow me to share a few specifics for building significant relationships within the context of youth ministry.

BUILDING SIGNIFICANT YOUTH MINISTRY RELATIONSHIPS

1. Get out of your religious ivory tower and into their world.

Many youth pastors try to do the majority of their relationship building on church property. But your effectiveness multiplies powerfully when you leave your spiritual comfort zone and courageously appear on their turf.

When I am attempting to bridge my way into a student’s life, I often go to his or her lunchroom or on the sidelines of his or her sporting event. Take for example an incredible young man named Nick. Nick’s name was smattered all over Rockford’s sports headlines because of his staggering football skills. Then one crisp, fall night, tragedy struck when his ACL was torn and his brilliant senior football season came to an abrupt halt. I’m convinced my spirited cheerleading at his games gave me a heightened voice to speak words of hope, direction, and faith during the following painful days. Now, months later, that same talented young man is preparing for full-time ministry. Why? Perhaps because I took time to come out of my church ivory tower and show up in his world of high school football.

2. Listen far more aggressively than you talk.

The Book of James tells us that as Christians we should be slow to speak but swift to listen. Those desiring to impact today’s youth culture should be even slower to speak…and swifter to listen. Teach yourself to make mental notes on topics that are important to individual teenagers. Then take time to sincerely bring those things up in conversation. Teenagers truly don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Today’s shallow family relationships make many of our youth starved for anyone who will truly communicate with them. Sincere conversations on anything from relationships to hobbies to history term papers build relational bridges that will eventually carry much weight for you. Occasionally, have the guts to ask questions of a more serious nature—"How can I be a friend to you at this point in your life?" or "Give me one thing on which I could support you in prayer." Then listen as the teenager answers, because those answers will give you a window into his or her soul.

3. Build some memories or memory-events—the kind they’ll remember in the scrapbook of their minds.

Our Heavenly Father modeled throughout the Old Testament the importance of building memories. He frequently instructed the Children of Israel to gather stones and build a memorial to commemorate a meaningful occasion. Because the media has largely raised today’s youth rather than parents, teens have not learned how to create their own fun. Thus, much of the sin you will deal with in youth ministry will boil down to teenagers who simply got bored and wanted to have some fun.

Help the teenagers in your youth ministry create some great memories rather than waiting for them to happen. Sometimes those memory-moments are made one teenager at a time. I have countless personal rituals with teenagers ranging from late-night phone calls after an important date to yearly visits to a mother’s gravesite on the anniversary of her funeral.

Other memories will be ones you experience together as a group. Sometimes glorious moments of spontaneous fun, spirituality, or tenderness will erupt with unexpected impact. Other times, these memory-moments will be ones you need to privately help plan and execute. Recently, I showed up in senior hall at one of our local high schools and passed out free breakfast to everyone who came through, along with humorous gifts that proclaimed that day as "Spoil the Seniors Day." I hosted a moving candlelight-devotional day on the beach during a trip with some of our students, complete with mementos of the night together. Some of my leaders helped coordinate "The World’s Largest TP Job" (complete with aerial view photographs of the friends’ homes that were targeted). Events can be serious or funny. Jesus made memories with His disciples, and we need to follow this powerful pattern.

The memory-event itself does not need to be anything lavish. The power in the moment rests in the heart and spirit behind it. Just hours ago, a sharp teenage girl hugged me and emotionally shared that every morning when she gets up she looks at a gift I had given her. What was the expensive gift? It was a leaf I picked up one fall afternoon and placed in her hand after we had a serious talk. "You told me," she said, "every time I look at that leaf, to remember that you and Jesus love me. It sounds so silly, but every morning I glance at it, and Jesus reminds me that both you and He are still on my team."

4. Cash in during moments of personal hurt or pain.

C.S. Lewis once said, "God whispers in the good times but He shouts in pain." How powerfully correct that statement is. Moments of pain or disappointment are what I call high-impact moments. Students remember for the rest of their lives who was there when they found out their parents were getting a divorce or that their mom had cancer. Likewise, the bond between me and some of my teens is never stronger than right after they lose a crucial basketball game, and we linger in the gym until the lights are turned off and we slowly walk out together. Emotions are not always rational during adolescent years, but they are real. If I don’t care about the pain they feel when they don’t get asked out for homecoming, I probably won’t be the person who hears their pain when they mess up big time on the Internet.

KEEP CHANGING THE TAGS

"Triage" is one of my favorite stories that summarizes the importance of relationships in youth ministry. It occurred during World War II. Triage was the policy by which doctors color-tagged the wounded indicating the degree of medical assistance they would be given. Red tags were placed on men who appeared to be hopeless; blue tags indicated a soldier would survive only if medical attention was given immediately; and a yellow tag meant a wounded soldier would survive even without rapid treatment. A soldier named Lou was brought in for medical review and quickly tagged with a red tag, indicating the hopeless manner of his condition. "After all," the doctor said, "his legs are so badly blown apart that life would be excruciating." But a nearby nurse, noticing that Lou was still conscious, began to talk softly with him so he would not face death alone. The moments of conversation spanned to an hour. Finally, because of the relationship that had been built between the two of them, the nurse simply could not allow Lou to die. What did she do? She replaced his red tag with a blue one, making possible the medical assistance that saved his life.

What is our calling in youth ministry? Part of it is powerfully pictured in this story. The Master Youth Pastor calls us not just to preach sermons, but to live them…in the context of close relationships with our kids. And as we see countless ones who are mortally wounded by the enemy’s attacks, we have the privilege of making Christ’s love real and life changing.

What is relational youth ministry? It is the call to keep changing the tags one person at a time. There are lots of red-tagged teenagers. Christ’s love through your life may be the only thing that truly changes the color.

Jeanne Mayo is youth pastor at First Assembly of God, Rockford, Illinois.