Reflection: Bullying

This blog post is probably jumping the gun since all of the information has not come out in the case of Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin of the Miami Dolphins. For those who are not sports fans, the short version of the story is Richie Incognito, a 9-year veteran of NFL football, terrorized a second year player, Jonathan Martin, so much he had to leave the team from the distress. I am sure there are many facets to this story the public does not know and may never know. However, this story has compelled me to at least share my thoughts and beliefs on bullying - something many of our middle school and high school students face on a daily basis.

I do not think many of us would argue bullying is wrong and hurtful. Many of us would agree that each of us has been bullied and also has bullied others in the past. We might mask our attitudes and actions behind "tradition" or label it “part of growing up,” but if we call it for what it really is, we’ve been bullied and we’ve bullied others. For most of us, we’ve lived through the bullying without it impacting who we have become as adults. However, this is not the case for many of our teenagers.

As many of you have heard me say, times have changed and the world our teenagers are growing up in is vastly different from the world of 1990’s and even 2000’s. Studies have shown today’s youth are less equipped to handle stress in their lives than ever before. On the flip side, today’s teenagers face more stress and anxieties than any other time in the past. Our youth essentially come to bat at the plate with two strikes against them (to use a baseball analogy). Our youth have less stability in their lives than ever before. Though many of them have been given every financial and social advantage to succeed, they’ve lacked adults who consistently desire what is best for the teenagers rather than their own. The lack of relational support has caused them to be less equipped to deal with the pressures and expectations around them.

So how does this correlate with bullying? For many teenagers, bullying is the straw that breaks their back. Not only do they feel detached from adults in their lives, they feel isolated by their peers. They are ill-equipped to deal with questions of identity and purpose in life, which is a critical developmental issue during middle school and high school. (BTW, this has very little to do with what they want to be in the future.) Teenagers who are bullied feel they have nowhere to turn for support and encouragement.

Spiritually, bullied teenagers have a difficult time putting their faith and trust in Christ because they often project their anger and hurt on God. Part of growing in discipleship requires an understanding of their own identity as the crowning creation of God who loves them without end. Being constantly put down and isolated teaches teenagers that they are not worthy of God’s love and grace. As caring adults in their lives, we must do everything possible to help all teenagers to feel loved and help them understand God’s infinite love through our words, attitudes and actions. We must individually decide to be part of the solution and not remain part of the problem.

In Colossians 3:1-3, Paul reminds the Colossians to remain focused on the heavenly perspective. “So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective. Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life.” (The Message) As parents and caring adults, we are charged to help teenagers to pursue Christ and to set their minds on things above. We need to help them align their thoughts, attitudes and actions with God's active kingdom through the example of Christ while we try to do same in our own lives. It is a difficult challenge that should cause us to humble ourselves before God for strength, wisdom and guidance. I hope you will join with me in leading our teenagers toward Jesus. May God find us faithful every step of the way.

 - Andy

Reflection: We Are What We Consume?

Recently, our student ministry team ran across an article from the Fuller Youth Institute by Kris Fernhout entitled "We Are What We Consume."

What author Kris Fernhout does in this article, is that he allows adults to better understand the world in which today’s children are growing up. A world where “about two-thirds of the $11 trillion U.S. economy is spent on consumer goods.” Consumerism is at an all time high, and adolescents play a more significant role in this than we would imagine. Advertisements and marketing strategies are targeting children and teenagers because they understand what the article’s title suggests “We Are What We Consume.”

Adolescents crave not just an identity, but an identity that will make them accepted. The article argues that this identity is created through what they own. No longer is it just about what items determine what is cool or not cool. It has come to the sad reality that many believe they cannot be defined by society without a pair of Toms or the new iPhone or whatever it is that kids are being told to purchase. To make matters worse, the advertisers feed off of this. They further push the notion that their product is necessary to create an identity.

So how do we respond as parents, youth leaders and role models? To be angry and to blame the system would be one possibility. However, this would solve very little. As much as we may dislike it, the fact remains that this trend will only continue to grow. And on top of this, we may even find that we are unknowingly contributing to the problem as well.

A better alternative would be to take consumerism for what it is to these children: another form of pressure. It serves as just one more thing to which students are expected to give in so that they will be accepted. When we realize this, we realize the importance of helping them find their identity in something else. We want them to understand that what they buy and the things they have are not what define them. Our hope is that they find their identity in Jesus Christ. That they realize that they do not need to fear being abandoned or fear not being loved because there is a God in Heaven that desires a personal relationship with them and loves them exactly the way He created them.

However, for them to be able to understand this we must enable them to look past what everyone is buying. Try to figure out the things in your student’s lives that they feel they “need” to be accepted. Reflect on the things in your life that you sometimes feel that you “must own” to be accepted by your peers. Once we better understand these pressures that consumerism bring, then we are able to steer their identity development away from it.

Let us all pray for the students, the parents and the leaders, that we are able to find the truth about where our identity comes from and to alter the thought process from “We Are What We Consume” to “We Are a Follower of Christ.”

- Christian