Having worked with young people for the past decade, I have been intriged by authors who write about youth culture. There is no better book in my opinion that has helped me minister effectively to them more than the book by Walt Mueller entitled Engaging the Soul of Youth Culture: Bridging Teen Worldviews and Christian Truth . From that book, I have gleaned these insights about working with today’s youth culture.
One of the greatest dangers in cross-cultural ministry is to attempt to communicate truth in a context that will not be understood. We understand that as missionaries.
To minister effectively in a cross-cultural setting:
We need to know the Word of God.
? To know Christ means that we are in a growing relationship with Him! (2 Peter 3:18)
? To know Christ means that we filter all of life through the lens of God\’s Word (2 Cor. 5:19,20)
We need to know the culture and thought process of the target people.
? To know the people means that we learn the language and study the culture of the people.
? To know the people means that we develop relationships with them. We spend time with them trying to understand their culture.
We need to communicate the Truth in a way that changes the heart.
? If we have successfully accomplished the first two things, the Truth will be effective to change lives.
? We will communicate in the right context in a way that is relevant to the culture.
We understand these concepts when we think of cross-cultural ministry; however, I fear we don\’t understand this principle at times when it comes to our own youth culture. One of the greatest dangers in working with this generation is to attempt to communicate truth in a context that will not be understood.
If you, like me, have said some of these things, then we need an update on our own culture:
“They don\’t listen to me…”
“They don\’t respect me…”
“They look weird…”
“They are not committed…”
“They are not responsible…”
“The way they look — they can\’t be serious.
“They don\’t think like me…”
“They don\’t know what it means to sacrifice.
“They are too materialistic”
Are some of these things true? Absolutely! Does this generation need to be challenged on some of these things? Absolutely! So how do we “get past” some of these things and communicate truth in a context that will be understood. Every human being has a framework through which they understand and interpret life. We call this a worldview. To know this generation, we must understand their worldview in order to show them how God\’s Word provides consistent answers to their questions.
Here are some bullet points that help summarize the postmodern worldview:
Don\’t reason with me. Understand me. This generation lives in a fast-paced, media saturated society. They are surrounded by overwhelming options. They live in a world pervaded by violence. They are deemed “materialistic”. They live with a sense of hopelessness. This is why simply providing “facts” doesn\’t change them.
Don\’t tell me “the Bible says”. Show me. This generation is very spiritual, yet very suspicious of truth. This is why they want you to live out what you say is true.
Don\’t talk about truth. Experience it. This generation is very experience and feeling-driven. You may hear them say, ‘Don\’t be so narrow. It\’s my truth!.’ In my opinion, this is why “praise and worship” is so big because it tends to focus more on feelings.
Don\’t tell me I\’m wrong. Tolerate me. This generation has lost the sense of right and wrong. They are culturally diverse and very tolerant. This is why they will respect you — because you are patient with them.
Don\’t tell me about acceptance. Connect with me. This generation has lived thorugh broken relationships. They are very concerned with appearance — dress, music and hair. They want to make an impact. This is why more and more youth are asking to be discipled.
So how can I influence them and impact them with truth? Influencing our youth is directly tied to how we respond to them. You can respond to them in one of three ways. accommodate, alienate or connect. Let’s look at each one individually.
First, you can simply accommodate their wishes. This approach is definitely a slippery slope. Knowing their culture and compromising truth because of culture are two different things. Caving into their wishes is not going to help them understand the negative influences culture can have. This though, is one common response. It seems like culture is listened to instead of the Word of God. We can’t let culture dictate our response instead of the Word of God. One of the things I have dealt with a lot in my ministry conxtext is the area of faithfulness. I ask them to be responsible and respond to notes and show up for meetings. When they don\’t, sometimes I hear people say, “That\’s the way this generation is!” Though it may be true, we\’re at fault when we don\’t challenge their worldview and displace it with the truth of God\’s Word.
A second response is to alienate ourselves by building barriers. This response is defensive: protect and defend. Don’t get too close because connection with the world will compromise your holiness. While the motive is pure, the result is far from effective. Sure, the individual might remain untainted but the culture also remains unchallenged. Instead, we become a legalistic group of Christians that focus only on external behaviors and fail to connect with the heart.
That leads to the third and proper response: connecting with their hearts. This response is by far the most difficult, yet if we are honest with ourselves, it reflects Christ\’s ministry while he was here on earth. This generation needs to see what a healthy home life looks like. It needs to see real people reaching out without judgment and without compromising the Word of God.
You may be like me and wonder what that looks like and how to connect? Here are some connection points from the book worth considering.
? Understand you are dealing with a cross-cultural ministry. We are suppose to be the “mature believers”. Keep that in mind. Bridging the culture gap between us and the young people is our responsibility. We must go connect with them. Not wait for them to connect with us. We must live for God in the context of this culture. Yes, we are called to be in the world, but not of the world. Our life should model true, biblical values.
? Evaluate methods. Avoid the “I’ve always done it this way…or it has worked for years, why change now?” mentality. It could be (I emphasize could be) why many organizations plateau and stop growing. With growth comes change! Understand your own cultural biases are not Scripture. Be willing to let go. Our way of doing things is not the only way. Embrace the good. Be open to change. By all means, hang on to right doctrine; but let go of the sacred cows!
? Use the culture to communicate. Jesus effectively used word pictures and stories familiar to his audience to communicate Truth. He used something familiar to lead them to some new truth. Listen to some of their music, get an ipod nano, get a myspace or facebook account, or watch a funny video on youtube.
? Build relationships. This past year I went to the opening night (started at 12:05 am) of Spiderman 3 with about 15 students — I don\’t like Spiderman. I wasn\’t interested. I knew I should be in bed, but I went anyway. It\’s opened up quite a few doors in my relationships with those guys. Was it worth it? I\’d do it again just for the connection. I also recently heard a statistic that the divorce rate is as high as 73%. This generation definitely has dealt with brokenness in their relationships. They long for connection. They want to see that Christ is real in your life. Remember, we probably grew up with the thoughts: “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” They grew up thinking: “God said it. I want to see it in your life. Then that will settle it.” Open your home. They need a place to belong, a place to call home… a small group to be vulnerable and open with. I know some awesome communicators of the Bible. The ones this generation listen to most are the ones that rub shoulders with them outside of the classroom. When you build a relationship, you open the door to influence. Try to influence without a relationship and you are forcing your views on them.
? Unconditionally love. Don\’t judge; rather love. Don\’t see them as projects; rather as people. If you want to connect, your love must be sincere and without limits. Hurt with them, enter into their pain — that\’s the heart of God for them. How do we love them? By serving them with humility. Our strength to serve comes out of our relationship with Christ. We are not their savior, we are but servants. Be realistic and truthful about your own struggles.
? Become a good listener . There are two main complaints from this generation about us: we don\’t listen and we don\’t understand. Which comes first? Understanding can only come by listening. Again, don\’t judge, remain open minded and ask questions. Failure to do any of these things will shut the door for a relationship and any influence you might want to have with this generation.
? Become a person of grace. Grace does not mean looking away. Grace deals with sin. It also provides the only environment for growth. As we ourselves experience a relationship with Christ based on grace, we can communicate to this generation in a way that helps them experience grace as well.
Let me close with a simple illustration. A long time ago in a village in India lived a hat salesman. Many times he would journey though the jungle to sell his hats. On one particular journey, he was tired and stopped to rest under the shade of a tree. When he woke up from his nap, a family of monkeys had taken all his hats and climbed back up the tree. This man remembered the saying ‘monkey see, monkey do’ so he took his own hat and threw it on the ground. The monkeys in turn threw all the hats on the ground and the salesman picked them all up and went on his merry way. Years later, this man’s grandson took over the family business and one day stopped for a rest. While he rested, monkeys came and took all his hats up the tree. He remembered his grandfather and threw down his hat. None of the monkeys threw down their hat. Instead, one monkey climbed down the tree picked up the last hat, slapped the man across the face and said, ‘Dummy, you think you’re the only one who has a grandfather!’.
Keep in mind the lesson: what worked last generation may not work for this generation! May God help us to learn the language and culture of our target audience so that He can use us effectively to impact them for Christ.
Adam and Jena Demark serving at New Tribes Missionary Training Center 
Right now at the Missionary Training Center, the third semester class is engaged in our course called “Culture and Language Acquisition Practicum.” However, we all call this class “Dobu.” One thing that a tribal missionary must do before he can ever hope to teach the Bible is to learn the culture and the language of the people. In order to learn a language, the students take courses such as Phonetics and Grammar so they can learn how to make different sounds that they are unfamiliar with and also arrange words in grammatical ways they may not be used to. For culture, they have practiced techniques and also researched kinds of cultures so they can think outside of their American culture and hopefully correctly access the tribal culture.
Thank you for your part that allows these students to learn these important language and culture principles. We are truly thankful for your heart to help our missionary candidates get the training they need. Through your partnership in our ministry here, you are helping to train students so that more remote people groups can hear the Gospel.
