Cultivating Grit: Helping Youth Embrace Maturity
Papa told epic stories of trials and triumphs. He told funny stories, too, but he reveled in stories of overcoming hardship. Unlike Papa, I’ve never risen triumphantly over the desperation of childhood poverty nor celebrated the end of a world war with my country and fellow seamen. Nor do I know the struggle of hitchhiking cross-country in search of work or starting a new life for my family without the warmth of familiar faces. Papa’s stories and tidbits of wisdom accompanied every moment shared with him – planting and harvesting his garden, playing pinochle, reeling in a big catch, learning to drive, gathering around the supper table, visiting family, and playing at the beach. On every occasion, Papa drummed up a fitting story to share.
My own story is inextricably woven into Papa’s story – his story, our story, my story. I know who I am and which values and choices get priority. I understand the importance of taking a calculated risk, and I’ve witnessed the power of perseverance and benefited from my grandparents’ tenacity. Papa’s stories prepared me with an awareness of a life accompanied by hardship and pain; his stories taught me that love protects, joy presides, and hope prevails. Throughout my youth, Papa confidently reminded me that suffering would not get the upper hand. In fact, if I were willing, hardship could transform me. Today, we call this grit.
Those of us with callings dedicated to youth often ask one another, how do we cultivate grit? The irony is not lost on me. Adults decided everyone gets a trophy. Adults decided student grades should not suffer due to the pandemic. Adults insulate, protect, and shield. Now, adults criticize youth for a deficit of grit. Jean Twenge’s book, iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy – and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood, explains the resistance among youth toward growing up. The young adults she interviews tell her they prefer the insular life of childhood and want to stay wrapped in their parents’ warm “cocoon.” The more we protect the children, the more we enable delayed maturation. Wanting to protect our children from enduring pain is understandable, but as Christians, this isn’t our story!
Last year, I created and taught a class called Vocation: Life Beyond Career to explore living into God’s calling. We shared intimate conversations and reflected on a purposeful life. I was particularly struck while reading the book Calling All Years Good: Christian Vocation throughout Life’s Season’s (Cahalan and Miller-McLemore) when students confessed dreading adulthood. These committed Christians, raised in the church, with adult mentors and supportive families, heard one message loud and clear – after college, life gets worse and “adulting” is drudgery. Their vision of adulthood lacked any hint of the central truths of redemption, transformation, and maturity found at the heart of Christian discipleship. None eagerly awaits gray hair: God’s “crown of glory” (Proverbs 16:31). Their stories scarcely reflect any awareness of “Victory in Jesus” or “It is Well with My Soul,” only an abysmal picture of a dreadful existence and the inevitable outcome of life after college--adulthood.
Unchecked underlying assumptions are at play. What stories are we telling our youth? What vision for the Christian life are we casting? Is what we deem helpful and good actually helpful or good? Should we be attempting to shield youth from suffering? How connected are we in their lives? Are we aware of their suffering? Are we inadvertently misleading youth to believe that following Jesus somehow gives us immunity from suffering?
As adults in the life of the church we proudly recite baptismal vows, clap as another confirmation class joins the church, and financially support youth traveling to church camp or mission trips; I worry we often outsource our baptismal vows to paid church staff or the few volunteers keeping the youth ministry afloat, instead of offering an all-hands-on-deck approach to youth ministry.
We’ve all heard (or said) criticisms like “What’s the matter with kids these days?” How many of us consider our shared responsibility for this? If we think the solution inevitably lies with someone else, we are sorely mistaken. The stories we tell shape us; how we talk about youth and the way we tell our story of involvement in their lives is of significant consequence.
Paul instructed older women to instruct younger women, and older men to instruct younger men. Nothing in Paul’s relationship to Timothy suggests this was a one-off moment of giving advice or pointing out Timothy’s woes as a young man. Rather, he lived a compelling story alongside Timothy; he explicitly taught him in word and deed a life of faithful discipleship. Paul and Timothy lived the story side-by-side. These kinds of relationships take time, and the young people I work with tell me they need that time from us. They long for adults who will graciously give them guidance and encouragement through the natural stages of growth required to reach maturity.
A genius of early Methodism lies in the spiritual formation structures Wesley established in the class and band meetings. These regular gatherings cultivated story. The content of the class and band meetings was the lived stories of faith of those who gathered weekly in a shared, earnest effort toward Christian maturity. Each person had a story, the class and the band shared a story, and these personal and communal stories lived within God’s grand story. The Wesleyan societies explicitly connected the personal and communal stories to God’s overarching narrative. At every level, from the society meetings to the personal practices of the means of grace practiced in one’s home, the goal of maturity into Christ’s likeness endured. The whole community of faith celebrated and encouraged maturity, which required the honest stories of how to maintain the faith through difficult times.
Youth know suffering, hardship, and pain. Unfortunately, many walk these difficult roads alone because they lack relationships with mature adults. The National Survey of Youth and Religion exposed the importance of parents and adults in the faith formation of youth. Young people desire adult mentors who can share their experiences of joy and pain and remind them of God’s presence through it all. Relationships cannot be reduced to a one-size-fits-all youth ministry story-telling curriculum, nor a video series with a tidy fill-in-the-blank handbook. Authentic relationships with youth require us to risk vulnerability about our pain, hardship, doubts, and struggles. Relationships require courage, and sharing our stories with young people demands more than simply throwing money at the youth ministry budget, sending youth to the church basement, and blaming society for their “demise.” Youth search for fidelity; they’re hungry for passionate people and places to whom they can pledge their loyalty. They seek a faith worth living and dying for (see Practicing Passion: Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church by Kenda Creasy Dean). This faith is only found lived alongside other faithful disciples and in the intertwining stories of our faith. By sharing our stories in the middle of life’s mess, and allowing youth to listen as we fight to keep believing in God’s goodness, we open the door for life-changing work in them — and just as importantly, in us.
Sometimes I wonder if the reason we fail to tell our stories to youth is because we, too, lack spiritual grit. It is hard to admit giving up on God’s ability to answer a long-sought prayer. It is embarrassing to tell others we’ve lost our desire to pray or we dread going to worship. It is deeply personal and scary to share when our marriage is on the rocks, addictions reign supreme, grief paralyzes us, or suicidal ideations plague us. We’d rather tell our story after the healing, after the resolution, and after the prodigal returns. What if what feels good is not actually what is good? Maybe what we need is to tell our story during the storm. I adore spending time with youth, because their “baloney sauce” radar is high. Youth practice honesty. They admit their doubts, questions, and fears, and easily sniff out and expose hypocrisy. They want us to invite them into our story, which is also their story, and ultimately God’s story.
Not long ago, I faced a crisis, the worst pain in my life. I was a mess! Amid this crisis, the high school vocational discernment program that I direct met for a week-long retreat. My thoughts were jumbled and incongruent, I struggled to laugh, and I was embarrassed, anxious, and afraid. One day, I sat in the tiny prayer chapel on campus with youth who shared with me their stories – painful stories of abuse, mental health issues, family strife, and personal despair. In most cases, I did not have answers. I listened, we cried together, and they asked hard questions of me. They searched for hope and healing and there I was in my own mess with my own doubts and questions. At this difficult time, waking up each morning with any hope was a challenge for me. Long after the week ended, my trial persisted. When I wondered how my faith would survive, the stories of these youth echoed in my heart. Their stories, their faith gave me faith. Their doubts and questions were not signs of weak resignation, but rather the tenacious cries of youth fighting to hold onto Jesus amid the hardship. As Christians, we need each other to hold onto our faith in Jesus in the face of desperation.
Recently, I heard a speaker emphatically say, “There is no redemption in suffering!” (The presentation was a snapshot of his recent book, which I have not read.) Still, the line is reverberating in my mind and rattling me to the core. If there is no redemption in suffering, why did Jesus die? What is the story of God’s people apart from those redeemed from the insufferable consequences of the disease of sin and death? What is hope apart from Jesus’ ability to redeem suffering and create something beautiful?
1 Peter 4:13 (NRSV) reminds us to “rejoice insofar as you are sharing in Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed.” James 1:2-4 encourages us to consider any trial a moment for rejoicing because “the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.” Grit, practicing joy in the face of hardship, matures us into the likeness of Jesus Christ. This is the grit Paul exercises and urges the church to develop in Philippians. The encouragement does not necessitate a search for suffering, for suffering is inherent in the human story. However, rejoicing in the face of suffering is not always the human story, but it is God’s story—where all things are made new.
In the earliest days of God’s story, the Israelites were instructed to teach their children the faith. God’s instructions were not to recite a pithy mantra or throw advice to the children and youth. Rather God intended the children to learn the faith in the face of everyday living, “at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:7). God addresses all of Israel--not only the parents, not only the pastor, not only the Sunday school teacher, or the youth worker. Teach the children. YOU teach the children. Tell them the story of God’s faithfulness. Retell the stories in our coming and in our going, in our working and in our playing, in our laughter and in our sorrow.
My Papa was a giant of a man. In his presence, I found safety and security. Despite his best efforts to protect me, Papa knew he could never shield me from suffering. So, instead of attempting the impossible, Papa wove his stories of trial and triumph into the everyday fabric of my life. For our children and youth, we must do the same.
Wendy Mohler-Seib is the Director of Faith Formation for Youth and Young Adults for the Richard and Julia Wilke Institute for Discipleship at Southwestern College in Kansas.