Making Space for Teens to Consider Call

This post was written by our director, Dr. Brian Foreman.

Earlier this week, Andy Hale wrote a post about teenagers and the decisions they face during such formative years. One comment in particular stuck out to me though: “Churches don’t have to alter their leadership construct, in order to give students the opportunity to discover and experience a potential call to ministry (although it’s not a bad idea). It can be as simple as providing a space to listen to their hearts, discover their giftedness, and find opportunities now for experience.”

I’ve thought a lot since reading those words about what that might look like.

EASIER

  1. Ask questions like “what are you passionate about and how might God use that?” “What activities bring you fulfilment, not that you just enjoy, but something deeper?” “What if God was calling you to __________? How could you live into that as a person of faith?”
  2. Plan service projects intentionally to expose students to a number of different arenas in which to serve. Educate them about the underlying root causes that make the services necessary.

HARDER

  1. Develop a mentoring or apprenticeships for various professions in which students have interest. Create reflection groups for the mentees to discuss how lives of faith inform that line of work or thier place in it.
  2. Start a study group for students where they read key writings from church history to develop a better understanding of how faith and vocation have gone hand in hand since the earliest days of the church. William Placher’s Callings, is a great anthology with which to begin.
  3. Create an social enterprise as a group that provides real services from which the proceeds fund service projects or community needs. Teach basic business and marketing skills to go along with having students provide labor.

The ideas are only as limited as the time you make for them. What ideas do you have?