As winter break comes to a close and 2016 opens a new chapter, we find ourselves falling back into routines and patterns. We carefully plot out our calendars for school and work and recreation. We begin planning trips and vacations. And inevitably, we resolve to attend church more often, to get back into the swing of things at Unity. In the 4+ months that I have been here at Unity, it seems I have a weekly conversation that goes something like this:
"My teen does not want to come to worship. He finds it boring and I have to fight with him to go. What can I do?"
"My teenager would rather sleep in than go to church. I worry that she isn't taking it seriously. What can I do?"
"When I take my kids to church, they will do anything to avoid paying attention. They are doodling and writing notes and they go to the bathroom 6 times. I don't know what to do."
"My teenager says that other kids go to a church where they can wear jeans and hear guitar music. I am having trouble coming up with excuses as to why we can't go to that church."
Well, friends, this post is for you. My prayer is that together, we can find a way to make worship a family-oriented activity and one that all generations find meaning in. Here are my top 5 tips for giving teenagers the tools to experience church.
#1: Use the Force like a Jedi, not a Sith
There are lots of blogs and articles online about whether or not it is a good idea to force your children and teenagers to attend worship; you can probably go right or wrong in both choices. I personally was given the choice to opt out of church beginning in 7th grade, and I ended up coming back by my own choice as a junior in high school. My husband was required to attend church with his family. We both have pursued our faith as adults and have strong love for the church.
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I would say two things about the Force. First, we live in a world where children and youth have a tremendous amount of autonomy, perhaps more than ever in history. Through technology, children and youth have more decision-making power than certainly I did as a child, and I'm sure you as well. If I wanted to talk with a friend on the phone, I had to use the family phone; it was very difficult to talk to people without my family knowing. I certainly didn't have my own camera, let alone the ability to post photos of myself or others onto the internet (come to think of it, the internet was still dial-up when I was in high school). This poses a problem to the family system because we have to learn how to have autonomous minors living under the same roof. It can be difficult to force kids to do things when they feel more independent than perhaps we'd even like them to be. Part of the reason some teens struggle with church is simply the fact that it was not their choice in the first place. For what it's worth, I still think it's important for teenagers to do things that they didn't select because it teaches us lessons about always getting what we want; there is certainly merit in establishing boundaries and concretely saying that church is a family-mandatory activity.
At the same time, we must recognize that part of teenage development is teaching them what it means to long for spiritual development. This means that we give kids the tools to choose church for themselves rather than giving them the answers. A great example of this occurred in Confirmation Class recently. I did a lesson on "predestination" or the belief that God has elected people for salvation before the dawn of creation and elected others for damnation. Some Presbyterians believe that there are only a few of us who are saved and many who are not; other Presbyterians believe that all people are saved. Both are legitimate Presbyterian beliefs. As we discussed this, some of the class sided one way or the other while others wanted to think about it more. In faith, I can't tell them which way is correct, but I can give them the tools to decide for themselves. I believe we can encourage our teens to attend church with their families in such a way that gives them a voice and the ability to decide for themselves what they need, what they connect to, what they are missing, and what they want for themselves spiritually.
#2: Prioritizing the Weekend
One of the main reasons teens don't want to attend worship is the fact that they are jipped out of another day of sleeping in. They may even have other friends who are able to sleep until 10 or 11 on Sundays. I recently witnessed a debate among teens over who had slept in the latest (it was 6pm, guys...6pm). I often hear adults saying in so many ways that this is a lame excuse.
However, there is some truth to this complaint. The National Sleep Association indicates that teenagers need 8-10 hours of sleep per night, and they often experience shifts in their sleeping patterns due to hormonal changes. It is somewhat natural for teens to want to stay up late and sleep in. (source)
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I can't speak for you and your family, but I can speak for my own at a young age. As a teenager, the priority for my weekends were as follows: 1. sleepovers 2. marching band competitions 3. family events 4. homework (on Sunday night at 9pm) and 5. Steelers football. And my family certainly never prioritized church either. We would have family events or marching band competitions or parties on Saturday nights until 11 or 12 at night, maybe later. Then to turn around and get up by 8:00am for church on Sunday morning became that much more difficult. Are we giving ourselves enough sleep in order to be fresh on Sunday mornings? Do we consider our worship pattern in order to determine our weekend activities? Or do we consider our weekend activities in order to determine our church participation? Certainly, there are weeks when life just simply gets in the way of attending worship, and we all understand that. But when we are trying to squeeze church into a jam-packed weekend, we might be setting ourselves up for failure when it comes to how our teens experience that service.
#3: Identify the ACTUAL Problem
Teenagers have about a million and a half excuses for not wanting to go to church: I'm too tired, I don't understand it, my friends aren't there, it's lame. More than half of these reasons are covers for more underlying issues, and it's important for us to hear the complaints of teens and to try to find more ways of treating the problem rather than the symptom.
The issue might be completely unrelated to the actual worship service as well. Growing up, my dad would make pancakes and bacon every Sunday morning. It was our family breakfast. On one Sunday, I had eaten my breakfast after I'd put on my Sunday clothes and my Dad took me to Sunday School. When I arrived, kids in my class teased me for smelling like bacon. One kid even said, "Dude, you smell like a Burger King!" Not exactly what every 13 year old girl wants to hear. I begged my family not to send me back to Sunday School because I didn't want to be teased again, but I couldn't use the excuse of smelling like breakfast because I didn't want to hurt my dad's feelings, as he'd labored over breakfast. You might not be able to find the complete reason, and chances are your teenager might not even know why, but you have a better chance of fixing the problem if we can identify its roots.
#4: Boredom = Lack of Engagement
The most common reason for not wanting to attend church is that "church is boring." This is a difficult reason to combat for a couple of reasons: 1. It is likely a reason that covers up another reason. 2. It's extremely vague. 3. It's not something you can easily fix. 4. Admittedly, it might be something you experience yourself.
When a student is bored, it could mean many things, but it always means they are not engaged in the content of worship. If they find organ music boring, it does not automatically mean that Patsy had an off week or the hymns are 500 years old; it means that there is something missing in the communication between the organ music and the youth. Perhaps the lyrics of they hymn include words we don't use often anymore, like Ebenezer or fortress, and the teen doesn't know what this means. Perhaps the tune is unfamiliar and hard to follow.
We worship in a tradition that is hundreds of years old. In fact, if you open up John Calvin's Institutes written in the 1500s, and you look at the Order of Worship he established, you might be surprised to find that it is very similar to the bulletins of our most recent worship service. Without understanding, a 500 year old worship service can seem intimidating and inaccessible from a teenage brain. If this is a complaint you have heard from your teen, I encourage you to look at the worship service together and think through which parts you find boring and think about why. Do you find the sermon boring? Is it because the content is not applicable? Or is it because you struggle to pay attention? Do you dislike repetition? Is it because the repetition causes you to zone out? Or is it because you got it the first time and don't need to repeat it?
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Learning about why we do what we do and what we can gain out of each part of worship can help us to engage, even if it's not our cup of tea. For example, there are many hymns that I find boring because I've sung them approximately 3 million times. I have taken to singing the harmonies for these hymns instead of the melodies because it engages my brain and helps me think more about the lyrics than I had been previously. If it would be helpful for you all, I can put together Worship Worksheets to help students and families talk about the worship service together and figure out how to worship more effectively.
#5: Know that it's normal...
The bottom line is that is normal and actually developmentally POSITIVE for teenagers to question why it is they go to church. In fact, teenagers and young adults question all the parts of their lives to figure out why they do what they do. They experience things and decide what they value and what they do not. They try out new styles with their clothing and hair, effectively questioning which ones express who they are most effectively. We embrace these experiments and support them. It is the same with their faith: students need to be free to try things and talk things through, to process them and learn what feeds them and what doesn't, what they like and what they don't. Just because a kid doesn't want to go to worship on a Sunday morning in January 2016 doesn't mean that they are missing the message or will not return. Faith is a process, an honest and challenging process, that we are all struggling to figure out; teenagers are no exception.
My prayer this week is for a new revival to begin within families, that we might explore together in 2016 what it means for us to be church-goers, how we are fed spiritually, and what works for us and what does not.
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