How Music Has Changed. . . And What That Says About Us. . . .

For me, it was college dining hall background music with great harmonies, loads of energy, and some great guitar riffs. I was reminded of Heart's 1976 hit "Crazy On You" (video from a 1977 performance below) this past Saturday night as I watched the band come together for the first time in over thirty years to perform at their induction into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. I thought about the band, their music, and what they represented about the times and the culture again on Sunday night, when I watched the Billboard Music Awards show. The contrast between these two televised events made the contrast between then and now oh so clear.

Perhaps the defining cultural peek from Sunday night's Billboard Music Awards was Selena Gomez's performance of her new single, "Come and Get It" (video below). The two words that came to mind as I watched were "sad" and "embarrassing." It was sad because it was formulaic, lacking any kind of creativity, and it was lip-synced. It was embarrassing for two reasons. First, this twenty-year-old performed in front of a room full of musicians - many of whom have genuine talent - and she performed in front of a television audience. It was embarrassing for her. But it was also embarrassing at a much deeper level. If this is this all we're attracted to musically. . . and we settle for it. . . then we've been complicit with a music-industry driven more by marketing and consumer interest, than it is driven by talent, truthfulness, and hard work. As I thought about the difference between Selena's performance and what I saw from Heart the night before (along with the other Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame inductees), well. . . then shame on us. It was embarrassing because I realized not only how low we progressively set the bar, but the kind of message we're sending to our kids. "Come and Get It" is a seductive invitation. Sure, there have been seductive musical invitations for years. But if a grade could be put on how the seductive invitation is worded and delivered, we've even gotten worse at being seductive!

When I teach skills in media evaluation and cultural exegesis, I always tell students to listen and look for spiritual hunger cries. There is always some cry for redemption. There is always some indicator of humanity's universal hunger for heaven that is rooted in our brokenness and lostness. There are also clear indicators of where people are traveling in their quest to find redemption. Like Paul in Athens (Acts 17), we need to find the "unknown God."

I've been pondering this as I think about what I saw and heard from Heart and Selena Gomez last weekend. When Nancy Wilson hits those guitar chords and sister Ann's voice soars in "Crazy On You," there's a unmistakable sense that they clearly know that they and the world are broken and that we all need some kind of relief. The song is rooted in the tumultuous and tenuous years of the 1970s. They sing, "If we still have time, we might still get by/Every time I think about it, I wanna cry/With bombs and the devil, and the kids keep comin'/No way to breathe easy, no time to be young. . . Wild man's world is cryin' in pain/What you gonna do when everybody's insane." While Heart's redemption is sought in the wrong place (a night of escape into passion), there's at least the conscious sense that things are horribly broken and in need of repair. But if Selena's song is an indication of how we've changed as a culture, we don't ponder the brokenness anymore. We simply skip right to seduction, as if that is the chief end of humanity.

So, while brokenness was in the music back in the 70s and it's still here now, we've spiraled down more than we know. We don't think. We don't ponder. We don't make as much music that comes from the heart and mind of the artist. We simply flood the market with musical and lyrical fluff that is fed to thoughtless minds who as a result of their thoughtlessness, are even more easily influenced that ever before. And that is not at all a good thing.

Self-Injury. . . What We Don't Know Will Hurt Them. . . .

As a culture-watcher, I sometimes like to “rewind” as a way to gain perspective on just how much and how fast youth culture has changed. The practice serves to wake me up at times when familiarity with what was once relatively unknown lulls us to sleep because it’s become all-too-common and widespread. That creates huge problems, because we’re prone to sleep through things that are so normalized that they don’t catch our attention and wake us up anymore. In just two days, I'll be hosting my good friend Marv Penner on a webinar about one the most pressing youth culture issues we face as parents, counselors, and youth workers. It's "cutting." Sadly, the epidemic of self-injurious behavior that’s swept through and taken up residence in today’s youth culture is one of those things that show us just how much the culture has changed. 

I first-encountered self-injurious behavior – more specifically, cutting – in the adolescent ward of a private psychiatric hospital back in 1974. Days out of high school myself, I was hired as a well-intentioned yet terribly ill-equipped and untrained “Mental Health Technician,” working the four-to-midnight shift with a revolving cast of 15 teenagers who were dealing with a variety of psychiatric disorders. One common-thread besides their close-proximity was a tendency for them all to slice away at themselves with anything and everything sharp that they could get their hands on. Usually, it was on their wrists. That location combined with a great deal of ignorance among our professional supervisors to lead them to instruct us to chart any and every incident as an “attempted suicide” or “suicidal gesture.” In hindsight, none of us had any idea at all what we were dealing with. 

Fast-forward almost twenty years to the early 1990s. It was then that cutting caught my attention. . . again. This time I was studying youth culture full-time, which is why the concerned mother sent me her letter. She wrote, “I am the parent of two students who attend a local Christian school, a 15-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy. Recently, both of them have told me that they have numerous friends who slice themselves with sharp objects. Can you help me understand what’s going on and what to tell my kids???” A quick trip to the medical library at a local teaching hospital turned up next to nothing. . . which was still far more than I had known two decades earlier. But what was known about cutting by the early 90s was this: It was happening more frequently. It seemed to be launched as a thought or idea without outside provocation. It was usually engaged in alone by 13 or 14-year-old girls who simply had a desire to slice themselves as a result of overbearing emotional pain. Few people were doing it with the goal of taking their lives. Among those who did it, there was quite often an early experience of being victimized by sexual abuse. Once they cut, they felt better. Consequently, they cut again and again, leading to more frequent and severe episodes in an effort to achieve the end of emotional relief. Researchers also reached this conclusion: We need to learn more!

The sad reality is that since receiving that letter, self-injury has swept through youth culture like a plague. It’s not only a sign that more and more kids are hurting more and more deeply, but that cutting is no longer an unspoken and solitarily-discovered coping mechanism for those who hurt. It’s become popularized and thrust into the mainstream as an option for self-therapy and self-care through casual conversations, music, and film. In 2003, Catherine Hardwicke’s poignant film, Thirteen, depicted 13-year-old Tracey’s venture into the world of coping with a chaotic and confusing transition to adolescence through cutting. Last year, the always-relevant Pink took music-fans into the bathtub of a teenager who cuts in the video for her chart-topping song, “F___ing Perfect.” These depictions and others stand as brutal reminders of an increasingly mainstream reality many of us would rather ignore.

One cutter says this about a habit that, for those who don’t do it, seems absurd: “I feel like there's something terrible inside me that I have to get out any way that I can. I think that's part of the reason why I have to bleed. Afterwards, I feel cleansed. I feel like whatever was crushing me before has been removed. I feel calm and in control." Beneath his shirt, unbeknownst to even his closest friends, this twenty-year-old wears the cries of his heart and soul on his chest. Because these marks are usually outward manifestations of inward pain, one researcher has called self-injury "the voice on the skin.

I want to invite all of you who know and love kids to join us for our 90-minute webinar on Thursday at 1pm (Eastern Time) for an eye-opening, practical, helpful, and hope-filled look at the issue of self-injury. Dr. Marv Penner, one of the world's foremost experts on self-injury and author of Hope and Healing For Kids Who Cut, will be walking us into a deeper understanding of this crucial issue. This is a webinar for parents, pastors, counselors, and youth workers. You can get more information and register here.

Inside the Teen Brain. . . .

One summer evening when my son Josh was only about five years old, he and I were driving east just as the sun was going down. After looking out the back window of the car at the setting sun, he leaned up and looked into the sky to see the moon. After another look back at the sun and a look ahead at the moon, he turned to me and asked, “Hey Dad, how come when the sun is still out the moon is up too?” Good question. After thinking a bit, I explained that God made the world so that there would always be a light to shine, one during the day, and one during the night. Then, I stepped down to his level and said, “And he made it so that when Mr. Sun is ready to go to bed, Mr. Moon is already up and ready to take over.” After catching a couple more curious glances at the sun and the moon, my little boy turned to me and adoringly said, “Man dad. . . . you know everything!”

And then he grew up and turned into a teenager. Suddenly, I knew absolutely nothing.

Why did Josh’s perspective on my intellectual capabilities do an about-face? We can better understand some of the intellectual changes in our teens by looking at the work of the late Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, who pioneered some of the most significant research in the area of child and adolescent intellectual development. Piaget found that young children pass through three distinct intellectual stages by the time they reach the age of eleven or twelve.

The first stage in the development of intelligence (roughly birth to two years) is called the sensorimotor stage, when a child’s intelligence is manifested through actions. Every parent remembers the joy of watching their child progress from acting solely on reflex to using senses to solve problems like reaching for a toy or opening a door.

The second stage in Piaget’s scheme is the preoperational stage (roughly two to seven years), when a child has the capacity to us language and play make-believe. The developing child uses imagination to pretend that a block of wood is a car or that two sticks are an airplane.

Piaget called the third stage during childhood the concrete operations stage (roughly seven to eleven years). The child is now able to think, using limited mental logic to solve simple problems. Children in this stage see tings literally and think in terms of facts. They see social problems and issues in terms of black and white, right and wrong.

The intellectual abilities of children are limited. Mom and Dad, along with most other adults, are viewed as being knowledgeable and correct on most matters. This makes life around the house fairly stable and comfortable. But things change when a child enters adolescence.

They certainly did for me when I was a teen. In hindsight, I realize that it wasn’t my parents who had changed, it was me. Although I didn’t know it at the time, adolescence had ushered me into Piaget’s formal operations stage (roughly twelve to fifteen years). I now had the ability to use more advanced logic to explore and solve complex hypothetical problems about the world on my own, and assess consequences of different courses of action. I was becoming an adult.

Amazing developments in the area of brain research are especially encouraging for parents of teens. In years past, it was assumed that a child’s brain was fully formed somewhere between the ages of eight and twelve. New scientific and research advances along with the use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technologies show that the brain is an organ that grows and transitions, just like the adolescent to whom the brain belongs. The brain itself is going through a period of growth during the period between puberty and young adulthood. In addition, the brain’s hardware and software goes through a process of “wiring” or “pruning” itself during the teen years. The brain’s Limbic system is the area deep within the brain that generates emotions, including rage and fear. With hormones surging and raging during adolescence, the limbic system is affected in ways that can intensify aggressive emotions, particularly in boys. Research shows that the brain’s pre-frontal cortex is the last part of the brain to develop. This is the area of the brain that controls planning, organizing, judging consequences, decision-making, self-control, and emotional regulation. Laurence Steinberg, an expert on brain development at Temple University, says, “The parts of the brain responsible for things like sensation seeking are getting turned on in big ways around the time of puberty, but the parts for exercising judgment are still maturing throughout the course of adolescence. So you’ve got this time gap between when things impel kids toward taking risks in early adolescence, and when things that allow people to think before they act come online. It’s like turning on the engine of a car without a skilled driver at the wheel.” When all is said and done, the brain may not be fully formed until our teenagers reach the age of 24 or 25 years old!

While right is still right, and wrong is still wrong, this ground-breaking research explains a lot about teenage behavior. Teens have difficulty controlling their impulses, they lack foresight and judgment, and they are especially vulnerable to peer pressure. This may explain why teens are more prone than adults to shoplift, smoke, experiment with drugs and alcohol, ignore using their seat belts, and engage in a host of other risk-taking behaviors. Their growing and developing brains can also sustain severe immediate and long-term damage when alcohol, drugs, and pornography into their systems. Without even knowing it, many teenagers are damaging and altering their brains for life.

I often think back to my own teenage years and some of the impulsive decisions that led to saying and/or doing things that I quickly regretted. My dad would often question the root of my impulsive behaviors by asking that oft-repeated fatherly question, “What in the world were you thinking?!?” I’ve asked the same question of my own kids. Their answer echoes my answer to my dad: “I don’t know.”

While there may be marked differences in the ways that different teens view the intellectual capabilities of adults, their newfound and developing ability to think as an adult will make for some interesting conversations and confrontations at home. Sometimes the best approach is for parents to bite their tongue and understand that this is a part of normal adolescent development. Remember, your adolescent is not yet an adult. You can expect an interesting mix of adult thinking ability tainted by immaturity, impulsivity, and inconsistent logic. As someone once said, “the best substitute for experience is being sixteen!”

Wise parents learn that while it is important to continue to offer structure, Godly guidance, direction, advice, and explanations, they should at the same time give their children some freedom to make their own decisions. Some of the best lessons are learned through discovery. Your kids will appreciate this, and it will benefit them in the long run. Parents who continue to do all the thinking for their teenagers will raise children who will have difficulty making vocational, marriage, educational, time-management, ethical, and other important choices later in life. In our house, our general rule has been this: When they are children, we most often think for them. As they move into adolescence, we most often think with them. We do this so that when they become adults, they will be able to think for themselves.

As parents, encourage the use of these new intellectual capacities by doing the following:

● Challenge your teenager to reflect on issues about which you might not see eye-to-eye. Share God’s perspective by leading them to Scriptures that speak to the issue or situation. By doing so, you will model and encourage responsible and Biblical critical thinking.

● Encourage discussion, and be sure to listen before offering advice. Teenagers who sense they’ve been respected and heard, are much more prone to listen to those who have first listened to them.

● Treat your teenager as an adult whose opinions you value by allowing them an increased role in the family decision-making process.

● Always teach God’s standards of right and wrong, and be sure to explain and enforce appropriate consequences. By doing so, you will provide the structure their developing brain lacks. In effect, you will become their pre-frontal cortex!

Now that my kids are adults themselves, suddenly I’m smart again. What goes around comes around. If you are struggling with an intellectually superior teenager, trust me, there will be a day when you too will get smart again!

Abercrombie. . . Where Ethics, Brains, and Beauty Are Only Skin Deep. . .

Is it possible that a clothing retailer could be any more shallow or ignorant? I don't ask this question in a momentary fit of knee-jerk anger. My question's been years in the making. Consider that I've on occasion wondered out loud about Abercrombie's worldview, ethos, tactics, and products. The company's lack of common-sense and decency sparked past blogs, including "More Reason to Not Like Abercrombie," "Abercrombie and Our 7-Year-Olds,"  "Cultural Hypocrisy and Abercrombie," "Hey Abercrombie I Accept You As My Savior," , and "Women and Pornography Addiction." After seeing how many times the company prompted a blog, I'm happy to say that I've never spent a penny in that store. But then again, I think that Abercrombie CEO Mike Jeffries is happy about my decision, because - after all - a guy like me sporting their threads could do serious damage to the Abercrombie image and brand.

Abercrombie CEO Mike Jeffries - Age 68 and Hip!

What is it that's sparked my ire today? Well, according to a story by Ashley Lutz in Business Insider, Abercrombie & Fitch only wants thin customers. In fact, they consciously don't stock women's clothing in XL and larger sizes because they don't want overweight women wearing their brand. Lutz says that Abercrombie wants "the cool kids and they don't consider plus-sized women as being a part of that group." She reports that Mike Jeffries admits that his business is built around sex appeal in everything. They only hire good-looking people to work in their stores because good-looking people attract good-looking people and they don't want to market to anyone who isn't good looking. I guess it could ruin their brand. . . which is where a guy like me could really screw up their marketing plan! In one interview Jeffries said this: "A lot of people don't belong (in our clothes), and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely." At least he's honest. But his honesty provides an open window into a heart that's running on empty.

Here are some thoughts sparked by this latest not-so-surprising news from Abercrombie. . . .

• We are suckers for marketing. Abercrombie has effectively grabbed our kids with these strategies. They've seized on and exploited their developmental insecurities. As a result, they are promoting and feeding a worldview that is so shallow that its depth might soon be measured in negative numbers. Kids who wear Abercrombie think the brand is helping them, when in reality it is destructive. The only people helped by the brand are those who are making a lucrative living off the brand.
• We not only pay Abercrombie for their over-priced clothing, but we then wear it. . . as walking billboards. Yes, our kids are paying the company to serve as an advertisement. That's a total reversal from how the billboard marketing on the side of the highway works. If you look at it this way, Abercrombie is pretty doggone smart. . . which means that we're pretty doggone stupid.
• We need to know that wearing the brand is more about the fabric on our bodies. We have no clue just how powerful branding has become in our culture if we think that Abercrombie is "just a shirt." No, it's a way of life. It's about the fabric of the world. . . who we should be, what we should believe, how we should live. Abercrombie is a worldview. 
• We (parents, youth workers, etc.) need to not only make our kids wise to the entire Abercrombie story and ethos, but we must go a step further and encourage them to promote a better worldview by ignoring the brand with their time, attention, and money. Don't spend a penny at Abercrombie.
• It's not just Abercrombie. And no, I'm not only talking about other clothing brands that are complicit in these strategies. Here's a very serious question. . . are we doing the same thing in our churches and youth ministries? Seriously. We continue to see a push towards style over substance. To relevance at the expense of depth. To a reliance on marketing and business savvy over and above a reliance on the Holy Spirit. Is it possible that the hipster look and resulting hipster faith that we so carefully pursue and cultivate could be making those who might be "plus-sized" (i.e. older, less style-obsessed) have no place in our "store" or with our "message." If that's the case, we'll soon be measuring the depth of the church with negative numbers.

Here's one more link for your reading pleasure. . . . Any Taylor's "Open Letter from a Fat Chick to Mike Jeffries." 

Teen Sexual Activity vs. Teen Sexual Integrity. . . .

A couple of weeks ago a youth worker was talking to me about his experience reading my book Engaging The Soul of Youth Culture when he was a college student. As we talked about the parts of the book that were most helpful, he mentioned a three-word phrase that he said has stuck with him: "familiarity breeds acceptance." He says that as a youth worker, he's committed to knowing cultural forces that have become familiar to kids. Why? Because even those things that are wrong become normalized and accepted if they become mainstream in culture. Then, he knows what he needs to address from a biblical perspective. You see, few of us are really aware of our own worldview and how it shapes what we think and what we do. Rather, we believe that this is the way the world is and that other people see it this way as well. Familiarity does breed normalcy and acceptance.

I was thinking about how familiarity breeds acceptance as I pondered cultural changes that have occurred since George Michael took his song "I Want Your Sex" to the top of the charts 25 years ago (can you believe it's been that long?!?). I remember talking about that song to my own youth group kids and their parents as we discussed cultural standards and biblical standards for sex. That was back in 1987. Now that those kids are parents themselves, Michael's quarter-century-old lyrics describe the mainstream assumptions of the generation of kids those "kids" are now raising. 

Take a look at the lyrics (below). The words aren't instructive or suggestive as they once were. They've become familiar and accepted. Now, they are descriptive. . . 

It's natural
It's chemical (let's do it)
It's logical
Habitual (can we do it?)
It's sensual
But most of all.....
Sex is something that we should do
Sex is something for me and you

Sex is natural - sex is good
Not everybody does it
But everybody should
Sex is natural - sex is fun
Sex is best when it's....one on one
One on one

Sadly, those last two lines might even indicate that George Michael's sexual understanding is a bit old-fashioned in terms of present day understandings about the purpose, place, and practice of sex. 

This morning I was reading a passage from Acts, chapter 2. As Peter addressed  the crowd during his sermon at Pentecost, he called them to turn themselves around and embrace Christ. In verse 40 he tells them to "save yourselves from this crooked generation." As we think about what those words mean for us today, we're not talking about just one generation, but a crookedness and corruptness that has grabbed us all. . . weaving itself through every nook and cranny of every life. We need to identify with Jesus and his cause with every square inch and moment of our lives. This includes our sexuality. With the culture sending so many familiar sexual messages (it's become ambient noise that's hardly noticeable anymore) that breed acceptance, there's another sexual script that must be taught, told, and lived. Take for example the mainstream Trojan Condom broadcast ad that I've posted below. What assumptions does it make about sex and sexuality? And, do you realize that those assumptions exist without question in today's youth culture?

Here at CPYU, we want to see all people (including ourselves) embrace God's life-giving and liberating will and way for all things. . . including our sexuality. We want to know the truth so well that those lies which have become so familiar will become clear to young and old alike.

If you'd like to know more about how to help the young people you know and love embrace God's grand design and big "Yes!" for their sexuality, consider joining us for tomorrow's 1-hour webinar with Jason Soucinek, the Director of our new Sexual Integrity Initiative here at CPYU. The webinar - "Raising Up Youth Who Believe in Sexual Integrity" - begins at 1pm (Eastern Time) on Tuesday, May 14.  You can get more information and register here. We invite parents, youth workers, and pastors to join us. 

 

Remembering Dallas Willard. . . .

"Readers are leaders." I've had several people tell me that over the years. I don't know that my reading has led me to leading, but I do know that reading has opened my eyes to so much. I would say that "Learners are readers." And, as I've learned to read, there are several writers who have become "must-reads" for me. John Stott, Tim Keller, David Wells, Os Guinness, Francis Schaeffer to name a few. Dallas Willard is also on that list.

Dallas Willard

Willard went to be with His Lord yesterday. I recently re-read his book The Spirit of the Disciplines. It was required reading for one of our Doctor of Ministry in Ministry to the Emerging Generations cohorts at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Such a good book. I thought I would pass on a couple of quotes from The Spirit of the Disciplines. If you've already read it, perhaps this will spark you to pick it up again. And if you've never read it, maybe you will pick it up for the first time.

"My central claim is that we can become like Christ by doing one thing - by following him in the overall style of life he chose for himself."

"What activities did Jesus practice? Such things as solitude and silence, prayer, simple and sacrificial living, intense study and meditation upon God's Word and God's ways, and service to others."

"The 'cost of discipleship,' though it may take all we have, is small when compared to the lot of those who don't accept Christ's invitation to be a part of his company in The Way of life."

"A thoughtless theology guides our lives with just as much force as a thoughtful and informed one."

"One specific errant concept has done inestimable harm to the church and God's purposes with us - and that is the concept that has restricted the Christian idea of salvation to mere forgiveness of sins."

"When we are in isolation from God and not in the proper social bonds with others, we cannot rule the earth for good - the idea is simply absurd."

"Where have we gotten this idea about 'doing what feels good'? The unrestrained hedonism of our own day comes historically from the 18th-century idealization of happiness and is filtered through the 19th-century English ideology of pleasure as the good for people. Finally, it emerges in the form of our present 'feel good' society - tragically pandered to by the popular culture and much of popular religion as well. Think about it. Isn't the most generally applied standard of success for a religious service whether or not people feel good in it and after it?"

"It is solitude and solitude alone that opens the possibility of a radical relationship with God that can withstand all external events up to and beyond death."

"What individuals are ready to do, what sits in them ready to burst forth, goes far to explain why people do the ghastly things they do. They are set to do them. There is a 'real presence' of evil scarcely beneath the surface of every human action an transaction."

"It is in his faith alone that we can find a basis from which the evil in human character and life can be dislodged. We have one realistic hope for dealing with the world's problems. And that is the person and gospel of Jesus Christ, living here and now, in people who are his by total identification found through the spiritual disciplines."

"Ministers pay fare too much attention to people who do not come to services. Those people should, generally, be given exactly that disregard by the pastor that they give to Christ. The Christian leaders has something much more important to do than pursue the godless. The leader's task is to equip the saints until they are like Christ (Eph. 4:12), and history and the God of history waits for him to do this job. It is so easy for the leader today to get caught up in illusory goals, pursuing the marks of success which come from our training as Christian leaders or which are simply imposed by the world. It is big, Big, always BIG, and BIGGER STILL! That is the contemporary imperative. Thus we fail to take seriously the nurture and training of those, however few, who stand constantly by us."

Texting Your Students. . . A Need for Youth Ministry Wisdom. . . .

Stupid. Now, it seems just plain stupid and risky.

Thirty-five years ago I was a freckle-faced youth ministry rookie. . . twenty-one years old, just out of college, exuberant about ministry, naive, and incredibly naive. I had just signed on to do full-time ministry with the Coalition for Christian Outreach, a campus ministry organization based in Pittsburgh. I was single and working about 80 hours a week, splitting that time between ministry on the local college campus and doing youth ministry in a local church. A good portion of our time was spent doing "contact work." That was ministry code for getting to know kids. Being somewhat extroverted, it fueled me. But thinking back to those early days and many of the years that followed, there was a "stupid" component to my ministry. . . in fact, it was a "stupid" component to the way everyone I knew in ministry was doing ministry.

The "stupid" part of our ministry had to do with the way in which we engaged with students. It didn't seem at all stupid at the time. After all, it all seemed so innocent. But filtering our ministry efforts through the framework of life in today's world. . . WOW! . . . I'm not sure it was really all that smart and I'm grateful that my innocence never got me in trouble. For example, the ultimate way to get to know a student was to spend time in their bedroom. The bedroom was the student's space. You could learn a lot about a student's heart, beliefs, worldview, and convictions by looking at their walls, checking out their music collection, scanning their bookshelf, etc. For someone like me who had been trained in sociology and anthropology, this was always an amazing ethnographic opportunity. It still would be a great way to get to know kids if we didn't live in such a dangerous and creepy world. But too much can happen. We know that, especially if we know ourselves. In hindsight, I realize that even the perceived and actual value of all that time I spent in the car with kids - alone and in groups.. . both male and female. . . sure, it was amazing ministry time filled with significant conversations, but I'd never do that today.

In recent years, I've had loads of opportunity to train youth workers in how to get to know kids, how to get to know their culture, and how to do youth ministry in a rapidly changing culture. I believe that it's that rapidly changing culture coupled with the reality of our own fallenness that requires us to exercise wisdom, diligence, and discipline as we set parameters for how we spend time with our students. Time with them is necessary and required. But I have to admit some concern regarding the lack of parameters and boundaries that I sometimes encounter. I've done a complete about-face. . . telling youth workers to stay out of kids' bedrooms and to avoid time alone in the car. You might never do anything or even think of doing anything, but you have no control over what others might do or say regarding that time. It's best to be prudent and safe.

Tim Keller defines "wisdom" as "competence with regards to the complex realities of life." He says that wisdom includes insight (knowing how things really work in the world), prudence (knowing how things really are in the world), and action (knowing what I should do about it). Youth workers need to pursue wisdom and live wisely in the world. That includes how we spend time with and relate to kids. It's about both hindsight (learning from the past. . . both our own past and the past of others) and foresight (anticipating how to live in the world in light of what we've learned from the past).

Which leads to this question: "How can we exercise wisdom in regards to our use of social media with kids?" It's an important question that not only sets good boundaries for our relationships, but it's also instructional as we nurture kids into a lifetime of living wisely in the midst of all the distractions and tools that they've been given.

I have one quick suggestion for how to make that happen. It has to do with text-messaging. My thoughts are prompted by some pretty direct questions I fielded last week from some youth workers who were considering how to set text-messaging borders and boundaries. They specifically asked about what could go wrong, and they had a desire to prevent that from happening. Their question prompted me to think back to my own early years of youth ministry and the fact that asking those kinds of questions never even crossed my mind. I was impressed! I was also prompted to think about wisdom and the need to apply wisdom to life and ministry in a rapidly changing culture.

My suggestion is this: even though text-messaging is the preferred method of communication for students, it isn't the best method of communication for anybody. Face-to-face communication is always the best. . . and I fear that we're losing the ability to do that effectively. That doesn't mean that I'm saying you should stop texting. I don't think that at all. There's a time, a place, and use for texting. Instead, we should be texting wisely. . . even redemptively. We should be texting in an "in but not of the world" kind of manner. That's the way we should be doing everything, right? Here are three quick standards that I encourage you to consider:

• Don't nurture kids into text-based communication. Always opt for face-to-face communication so that you can communicate deeply while nurturing them into an art that is on its way to being forgotten.
• Be very careful about texting one-on-one with students. I used to advise against one-on-one texting with students of the opposite sex. I liken it to riding alone in the car. But in today's cultural setting, it might be best to start considering the avoidance of one-on-one texting with students of any sex. If that doesn't sit well with you, just take a moment to contemplate what could go wrong.
• Make texting one of the ways you communicate with kids. I think there's a great value to mass-texting. Mass-texting your entire youth group is a great way to spread the word.
• Always, always, always think about your text message before you send a text-message. Is this wise? Is this helpful? Could this be misinterpreted? 

A word to the wise from someone who's been there. . . do youth ministry today in a way that you will never be able to label as "stupid" or "risky" 35 years from now.