Common problems faced by American Christian teenagers
As our Christian children face their teens and young adult hood, they will face the first challenges to their faith. As they hopefully come to realize that their parents, teachers, and pastors are just regular people. That they too will make mistakes, sometimes big ones. Our children will find in their schools and colleges the facts of faith they accepted so easily, are considered naive myth by most people. They will see that the Christian way of life does not dominate in their town, state, country or world. They must come to terms with the fact of what faith really means to them.
The key to equipping our young people with the ability to maintain their faith through this most difficult phase of life is to teach love and respect for every person. Instead of limiting and restricting the knowledge and experiences they wish to gain, we should empower them with strength of character. We must teach them to respect the differences in people, and how they live and make choices. By validating everyone's freedom to choose, we give them the ability to validate their Christian choice, in the larger world they will live in. We do not need to fear or hide from other opinions or worldviews. Only with love and respect for another person and their views will we ever be able to create opportunity for a relationship. To fully respect the beliefs of another is to respect our own right to believe in the unseen.
We must equip young people with the strength of character to be different. How do we bring this strength into their lives? By helping them come to a full understanding of the choice of faith. They must understand this choice is personal and they are responsible to it alone. We must tell them that faith is about believing and not knowing. With an actual trust in God they will inevitably experience peace and strength.
We must teach them that their beliefs will be challenged. There will be points in their lives when they will fold their hands and get on their knees to pray, and feel completely alone. They won't know if God is listening anymore. They will be challenged to endure on their own.
We must teach them that their beliefs will change as they get older. As we learn about ourselves, God and our faith, things change. The only way their faith can survive as they grow and change is with the foundations of love in action. If we teach anything before love, our children's faith is guaranteed to fail.
Intelligence, dedication, passion, excellence and creativity will all eventually fail to support our children's spirit. We must help them to achieve an understanding of faith, love and respect. Whenever we find dedication without love and understanding we find disaster. And we find so much of this in our Christian family. In fact we find the same problem as far back as our foundation with the apostle Paul. Paul was once a hunter and killer of Christians until God temporarily blinded him. Should we have hated Saul and loved Paul, did God? How can we teach otherwise?
As Abraham we must be willing to sacrifice our children to our faith. Only through true faith in action can we pass on a true faith to our children. If we foster fear and hate of the world and others, our faith is revealed. If we ourselves look at and live in the world with love, confidence and respect, our faith is revealed. God is in charge and love is his message. If we act otherwise we teach otherwise.
The beautiful thing is that the ONLY way to teach anything about faith, is by having it. Their is no "do as I say not as I do" here. If we try to pull this off in religion and faith our children will know us as hypocrites, and religion as an idealistic fairy tale. This to often is the case.
In 1st Corinthians 13 we find this advice:
1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have the gift of prophesy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.
Appropriately numbered unlucky 13, here we find Love overshadows all other things. The ability to love everyone does not come easy. We must find Christ in the eyes of every person. We must teach our children to remember Christ died for everyman. John 3:16 starts out with "For God so loved the WORLD". Christ has solved the problem of sin. We must try to teach our children to see Christ and Love in the world not sin and separation.
In John 13:34 Christ says it like this:
34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
A teenager who is well prepared for adulthood will have an in depth understanding of love, a boldness and confidence in their faith, and complete respect for other people. As Christian parents, teachers, and pastors we must remember any fear we hold out in front of our children reveals our lack of faith in God and in them. We must be bold examples of faith empowering them to experience everything Gods wonderful world has to offer. We must drive them to find inside themselves their greatest expression of God and Love. Then take their talents and loving hearts out into the world. If we equip our teenage Christian Americans with a true understanding of Gods Love and their own Faith. It won't matter if they find themselves in a classroom, boardroom, police station, or hospital, they will have firm foundation for any experience life has to offer.
In Romans 12:14 we find the following advice:
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. 16 Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. 17 Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. 19 Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord. 20 "BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING COALS ON HIS HEAD." 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.