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- LATELY, I have been thinking quite a bit about the need for junior high youth workers to be willing to do the tough work of getting into the minds of our kids instead of asking students to get into our minds. It seems that we often try to get students to laugh at what we think is funny, go “wow” at what we think is cool, want to talk about topics we find interesting etc. It’s easier to minister that way, but it’s not as effective. As adults, we need to be willing to go to their level instead of hoping they will come to ours.
- QUESTION: Do you know your teaching style? Andy Stanley posed this same question to a group of pastors a few weeks ago and it has stuck with me ever since. While I definitely seem to have a style, I’m not sure I have ever really dissected it to see if it’s the most effective style for communicating to junior highers. I am in that process now. Note: this feels much more important when I take seriously the whole “Me entering their minds instead of expecting them to enter mine” idea.
- FINGERS; I’m glad I have ten of them. I am spending a few days with my good friend Scott Rubin, and yesterday I had the first-time experience of operating a snow blower to clear his driveway and sidewalks. I naively assumed that a snow blower was just a big vacuum that somehow sucked the snow into the machine and blew it out the chute. What I didn’t know was that there is a big “fan/chopper/swirly thing” that serves to break the snow up before it shoots it out. At one point the chute got clogged and I reached way down into it to clear the snow only to have my finger get caught briefly in the “fan/chopper/swirly thing”. Luckily I had gloves on and the snow blower was idling so no damage was done. Just a little bit of pain and a whole lot of “Scott…why didn’t you tell this California kid that snow blowers are also finger choppers!” It never crossed his mind that he had to warn me not to jab my whole hand down the snow blower chute. After all, he has been around snow blowers for years, while it was a foreign experience for me.
- ASSUMPTIONS. The snow blower incident and Scott’s assumption that I understood the inherent dangers posed got me wondering how often do we as junior high youth workers assume certain things about our students. Many of us have been around junior high ministry for years and so much of what it entails has become second nature to us. But, it’s completely different for our students! They are first-time travelers on the road of early adolescence…it’s foreign to them. Far too often, I’m afraid, I assume things about them that I shouldn’t. Note: again, this goes back to that whole “entering their minds instead of expecting them to enter mine” thing.
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The best way to get Andy’s take is to read his book “Teaching For Life Change” (I think that’s the title). His basic approach: 1. Pick a compelling passage 2. Rub people’s nose in it…get it all over them. 3. make it stick…make it applicable. 4.) Give them one thing to do with it this week.
Thanks for these thoughts, Kurt. Really good stuff to chew on.