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It is a sacred privilege to be in ministry with young people. They listen with perspectives that only today’s youth can bring and ask questions that will make you think for days. Just last week I met a youth for coffee and was asked “What would our faith look like if Jesus hadn’t died and was still here to preach a message of love and justice?” If you take the time to listen, our young people go deep, and they continue to amaze me.
It has always been hard to be a teenager, but today’s youth live in a different reality. Previous generations of students didn’t worry about being shot while taking an algebra test. We are now way beyond fretting over getting beaten up by the school bully. When today’s teenagers are “alone” they can constantly text their friends, post on Instagram, scroll TikTok, Google anything they want—all from their phones. They are no longer left with periods of quiet where all they can do is read, wonder, imagine, or pray. Today’s politicians ignore issues of importance to those under 18, making them feel irrelevant and silencing their voices.
Our youth long for conversations around mental health, gun violence, cyberbullying, LGBTQ+ equality, and TikTok, just to name a few. And they know that we have done more damage to the environment than can ever be repaired.
Yet, what fascinates me is how today’s youth refuse to buy the marketed temptations to despair and fear. Instead, they volunteer in soup kitchens, go on service trips, plan careers in social work, and study different languages in the hopes of really listening to someone who is culturally different from them.
They seem to live easily in a society filled with many narratives coming from people of different colors, religions, and orientations. They don’t trust anything big or meta, but they believe strongly in the small and engaging communities they create for themselves.
A quiet hope abounds in this generation. It seems to me that its members are saying, “We get it that our future is filled with obstacles, but we’re just going to keep moving.” And that has always been the best response any generation could ever have when faced with the mess that an earlier generation placed in their hands.
So, say a prayer of gratitude for today’s young people—this world needs them more than ever.
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