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Surprise! Becoming Invisible Makes God Visible to Teenagers

By Kent d Curry with Nita K. Curry
May 22, 2006

It’s been a long time since I’ve learned something in a Youth Service, but this time I guess I didn’t have a choice.

An emergency occurred and on Tuesday evening I was asked to speak at our regular Wednesday night Youth Service. Besides having a full slate of commitments Tuesday evening, work was heavy and offered no respite. I don’t speak often, so I like to take advantage of every opportunity possible with my best possible effort. Not this time.

After mentally veering through some classic lessons into the land of new ideas and back, I cobbled together some practical Christianity, reminded the Lord I hadn’t been given adequate time for Him to move nor me to prepare, and then jumped up front with nothing to lose, but little to gain.

I’m used to speaking about 30 minutes. This was a 15 minute special with neither adlibbing nor insight. It was just me sharing accessible Christianity, four simple points (and you’re always supposed to have an odd number of points to maintain a rhythm, so I was breaking every known rule of speaking), that any 15 year-old could share off the top of his or her head.

So an odd experience occurred while I courted the stormy head of disaster with neither smile nor faith. I learned something.

This Time / Last Time
This was in direct contrast to last time I spoke, which was long, painful, and ineffective. I’m still not sure what went wrong; I’m just positive God gave me the speaking idea, I prepared, I had teenagers illustrating the stories, and challenged them to dream. Nothing. I might as well have been speaking Yiddish to a camel.

This time, the Lord moved. For some reason, what I said and what the teens heard were two different experiences. They began seeking God. They somehow understood my meager examples allowed Christ to be seen through them at school, church, and home. They cried. They sought God in direct disproportion to the quality of my message.

I know the Lord moved because a week later (a week!), a 10^th grader (a 10th grader!) said he appreciated my illustration about the Apostle Peter (he remembered!).

Even later, I received this (now somewhat edited) email:

hey kent...so this is kinda belated...but i wanted to tell you that i really liked what you spoke about in youth service a few weeks ago...it stayed in my head and really helped me..it was one of those messages that i dont get all crying and emotional over, but it really makes me think and see how I can improve my daily living, ya know what i mean?...so anyway i just wanted to tell you that and say thanks.. 

I never receive emails of thanks after I speak.

Despite this unexpected (and, frankly, unearned) praise, I was most surprised at how God taught me.

Learning Without A Net
This is what I realized (and maybe you can learn something, too):

1. Get Out of the Way—Once you’ve prepared the best you can (and adequate preparation is crucial), then don’t worry about the results. Only Nita knew I had so little prep time, but when I stepped to the front I literally didn’t care how I did. I couldn’t care. I could only do my best.

So that’s what I did. And looking at the notes, it’s one of my weakest lessons ever. Usually I prepare a lot, and the Lord’s been known to use those messages. Yet, those lessons always include a healthy dose of “Kent” in them and any thanks are shared between me and maybe the Lord if I allow it. By my getting out of the way, God had a chance to work His will because there were no Kent ego impediments to His spirit.

I don’t want to ponder too long wondering if this was my first lesson ever for me to be transparent. Hopefully, the messages you speak or write are shared by a transparent Christian.

2. Tone is Imperative—How the message is delivered to this generation just might be more important than the message. Told in the right way, teens will listen to anything. They just aren’t open to hectoring about “You need to…” or “Get out there because people are going to Hell!” or “Why do you…” Most aren’t even open to being challenged positively, especially in group settings. (This was a slow adjustment for me.) If they smell the slightest goading, they shut down.

To circumvent this, bury your challenges within gentleness, as if planting a seed within soft dirt. One method to do this by is in offering them alternatives they must choose between. (For example: when the class loser is being picked on, what does a true Christian do—join in the abuse to stay cool? Say nothing to prevent the abuse from turning on you? Tell the abusers to stop it? Or does the Christian stop the abuse and befriend the loser?) This method forces them to make a decision in a situation they notice every week and then they must decide what type of Christian they’ll become. It’s the Holy Ghost’s job to convict the disobedient—not yours.

Besides, demanding or pleading that they shouldn’t pick on losers gets you nowhere but tuned out.

3. Use Applicable Points with Personal Stories—Every teen in every era only thinks this thought while listening: “How does this apply to me this very moment?” Unfortunate, but true.

Make your lessons broad (by its overall theme), yet specific (in its practical points of behavior). So a lesson on kindness explains how to be kind (at home, school, on the job, at church, with friends), without just stating “Care for others!” because the meanest person in the world believes joy explodes from their every dancing step.

On that blessed night, when I discussed my crumbling points, I tried to have a story of my own to share. Frankly, some of them were lame and none of them were funny. Still, some resonated with the kids to where they understood I was sharing biblical truth, not preaching traditional rules.

When I discussed noticing the needs of others, I mentioned how—for something like three straight semesters—the only time I had anyone at university come up to me saying, “I need Jesus” was the night before my biggest finals. So as I stared at the mountain of textbooks beside me I was stuck with a choice—do I share the Gospel, or do I ask them to return another day at my convenience? How come no one ever wants Jesus when I’m well-rested, gorging on free time, and the Holy Ghost blazes through me like a beacon of hope?

Leaders do great damage when they bring up a fresh point the teens haven’t processed fully, and then expect only the teens to discuss it. Opening with our own story provides them with thinking time, allows them to relate to you as a person, and encourages them to share their own situations.

Best of all, like my thankful emailer, those nuggets stick in their brain long after the service ends and ministers in their daily life.

The gospel is relevant to every age and person. Your practical applications to daily life keep it so.

4. Invoke the Different—I know we’re Pentecostal and love to bellow to the heavens to prove our sincerity, but a silent prayer can be equally effective. On this night, I told them we were all going to pray in silence, just each of them talking to God in their own words, for about two minutes, then we would wrap up.

In essence, I told them:

· What we were about to do that was different

· What they should do individually

· How long it would last

Teens love the unusual as long as the parameters are defined.

Here’s what happened when the different was unleashed: About one minute into the silent prayer, I peeked to catch the temperature of the crowd. Still praying. Nobody’s eyes were open. Two minutes passed. Still praying. Another minute and I began to wonder what was wrong with them. Then they started splitting off singly to pray away from their peers.

Good thing I had become invisible because I was about to dismiss everyone.

5. Stay Consistent—Teens make this one difficult. I mean, a kid pours their heart out to you after Youth service, heartbroken and distressed, then, before Sunday evening’s service they blow right by you as if you were a floral display in the foyer, because you are a floral display to them much of the time. Besides, that talk was 3-4 days ago, and so many lifetimes have occurred since then.

Recently I shared a tortured email correspondence with a high school senior wondering, “What should I do with my life—go to college or travel first?” I didn’t know her that well, so asked many questions about her interests and options. A dozen emails later, we had a 20 minute talk on life direction that ended with her saying, “Thank you. You’re my new hero.” That’s what she said—I was her “new hero.” Three weeks later I found out she did exactly what I had advised her against. (Heroism isn’t what it used to be.)

Still, you just keep smiling and shaking their hands and loving them and they’ll come back when they need you. They’ll come back even more often, if you…

6. Spend Time with Them Away from Formal Activities—(For this, I turn to Nita to share her own strange stories.)

Becoming an Apostolic as an 18-year-old brought many challenges. There was the explanation to friends who had no idea what I was talking about, there were the lifestyle changes, but probably the most difficult aspect for me was the fact that I had now entered into the well-defined world of Apostolics. At that time there just wasn’t a lot of ministry opportunities for young women unless they married a minister or were musically talented. I didn’t see either on the horizon for myself, so, as a former Baptist who didn’t know much about God, I went to Bible school to learn about God and people. I did both, as Bible school was a positive experience for me and continues to help me today.

Interestingly enough though, the one factor that I didn’t take into consideration as a future ministry opportunity was the simple fact that I was a former Baptist! In one Sunday school lesson to both teens and twentysomethings I included my testimony. I explained how wonderful my life was prior to receiving the Holy Ghost, but the reality was that I wanted something more—there was a void. My friends were not that supportive. Yet the desire God had instilled in my heart was stronger than swimming with the present current.

Evidently this resonated with a couple of teenagers. Many weeks afterward a young lady who had rarely spoken to me came up and asked how she could better witness to a Baptist friend at her school. She needed insight on how to reach him by understanding his beliefs.

Some weeks later another young girl who was a passing acquaintance came up to discuss someone she knew who was going to a Baptist church and needed help. I couldn’t believe it.

I later realized that my testimony would’ve been ineffective if I hadn’t been attending non-Sunday school, youth events so they could stumble into me and remember I could help them. I was there on their schedule, not them on mine.

 

May God Alone Flow Through You
Of course, once I returned home from that service I thought of a million Kent-inspired points that I should have included, some deeper applications that would’ve impacted them greater, some timely humor . . .but those are on my notes for the next time I need to share that lesson. (Never let those “I should’ve said’s” disappear from your memory. Write them down when you get home and figure out how to rework that lesson, or one similar, the next time the topic/theme is open.)

Then get out of the way so God can do His more perfect work through you. Who knows what might happen when He’s set free?

© 2006 Kent d Curry and Nita K. Curry

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Kent d Curry is an executive editor of ninetyandnine.com while Nita is the Letters Editor for ninetyandnine.com.