Most youth workers still work in school terms, so effectively September brings an opportunity for a new start. It is also a new start for all of our young people in some way or another, going into a new school or new school year, moving from children’s work in church to youth work or from Sunday school to the main church service. Supporting young people through transitions is a key part of our work, the ultimate transition of a young person being that transition between childhood and adulthood.
However I was recently reminded by Tim Broadbent at St Mary’s Islington that, although it is important to support young people through this movement, it is also important to remember that we need to focus on supporting young people in who they currently are: young people. We need to spent time listening to who they are now: rationally, cognitively, emotionally and spiritually. As we do this, our attention is brought to ‘being with’ young people today rather than ‘working on’ young people for their new futures. I’m not saying the future is not important, but I am suggesting that we can get carried away with trying to make young people into adults, pushing them too far too soon towards our own ideals, from our own anxieties.
Working with young people in the present and in their present feels to me like a much more Christ-like response. And it is a challenge! Jesus called the disciples to a new life following him the very day he called their name. Yet Jesus did this through working with them in their current context and speaking to them about familiar things they understood. Yes, Jesus spoke to them about the future and what they didn’t understand (!) but only after he had met them in their present.
Luke 5 is a brilliant example of this. Here Jesus arrives at the shore of Lake Galilee to teach and has an interaction with the fishermen Simon, Andrew, James and John. Jesus asks to get in the boat with the disciples so that he can teach. And when he has finished, he experiences what they are experiencing, by literally going out in the boat with them. Jesus challenges them to look at what they do every day in different way – he tells them to go fishing during the daytime, rather than at night. I love this, you can almost hear Simon’s sigh as he responds, ‘We’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so (you crazy man), I will let down the nets.’ Simon and Andrew then gather a catch so large they need their friends’ boat to help! In that moment, all four fishermen also catch a new way of thinking and they are forever changed.
Journeying with young people as they navigate the path toward adulthood demands we get in the boat to spend time understanding their today, listening with them, reflecting with them, before we begin to challenge them to make new decisions for their tomorrow. What does ‘getting in the boat’ look like in your context?
James Fawcett is part of Concrete and supports youth work in the Diocese of London.