Expectations
High school students feel the weight
Recently YTN held a number of sessions with youth groups and at state youth conventions with hundreds of students which raised questions for the youth pastors attending these sessions with their students.
Do our expectations generate within our youth the internal motivation and long-term benefit we desire?
During these exercises youth were asked to discuss what expectations they felt and believed were expected of them to be a “good Christian” at church or at home. The youth leaders along with YTN staff were dismayed by the result.
In each instance, we received between 35 and 55 expectations our youth felt they needed to measure up to, including:
Always be in a good mood
Always respect your elders
Go to church every week
Like everyone
Avoid sinful influences/friends
Share your faith
Daily prayer
Know the whole Bible
Be wholly devoted to God
Be a virgin
Be active in church
Be holy
Have no doubts
Have no spiritual lows
Have unwavering faith
Constant obedience
Wear proper clothes
Be the perfect child
Be serious all the time
While either taught or implied, it was clear to the leaders in attendance that we could not live up to the list of expectations that students are telling us they have learned, felt and in many instances measure themselves against. For many, it appears that the yoke has become heavy and the burden outrageous, discouraging their hearts and causing them to want to withdraw.
Can expectations cause our students to rise to the occasion, especially if we have established a good relationship with them? Clearly the answer is “yes”. A question arises from the word “occasion”. When they rise to our expectations, will it last? Did it come from an internal heartbased desire to love and serve? This is a difficult question to answer and it may be different for each student based upon their spiritual and social maturity.
For the youth pastors and lay leaders in attendance the list was eye opening, revealing and caused many of us to stop and talk with each other. We reflected upon how we get beyond the knowledge of right and wrong and of performance to the internal motive that will last beyond our time as the shepherd in our students’ lives. Working in God’s timing rather than our own seems to be part of the answer to helping our students come to the realization that Jesus’ “yoke is easy and burden is light.”
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