One of the reasons I love teenagers is they demonstrate a capacity for passion and action that sometimes gets drained and stifled by adulthood. I love that willingness to "go for it."

The downside is that sometimes that adolescent mindset leads kids to "go" before they figure out what "it" is.

I admire the fact that the youth ministry culture is predisposed to action. We don't have much of an appetite for theoretical discussions and position papers. Our survival as youth workers is based on our ability to go with the flow and think on our feet. That makes for an environment of excitement and adventure; but I'm concerned that sometimes, with our predisposition to action, we demonstrate an adolescent disinterest in things that are very important but do not happen to be very exciting or interesting.

For example, in a recent breakfast meeting with some other youth workers, one of my friends at the table commented, "I hate systematic theology. I just think it's a waste of time." Now, if my friend meant that he has no time to worry about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, I quite agree with him; but if he meant that he had no interest in trying to think through the deep questions of doctrine and belief in a systematic way, I couldn't disagree more. That's like a middle school kid saying, "Why do we need to take these stupid math classes? I know how to add. Besides, I'm going to start my own skateboard company when I grow up."

Maybe one of the reasons we in youth ministry don't attribute more value to systematic theology is that we aren't systematic theologians, and we don't know much about it. We're like monkeys in the cockpit throwing out dials and knobs because they aren't edible. The problem is those gauges and switches of systematic theology come in handy when trying to set the course or land the plane. In the current youth ministry culture—the books we read, the conventions we attend, the realm in which we do our professional work—we rarely hear the voice of trained, studied theologians. Even though it won't help us with this week's retreat, next week's outreach event and…oh yeah…it's not very "edgy," that voice might help us to better stay on course.

Mistaking Cynicism for Discernment

Most of us have come to appreciate the fact that kids are willing to ask hard questions. Their sense of idealism hasn't yet been fully eroded and compromised by a culture that dumbs down morality. On the other hand, with that sense of idealism often comes a cynicism that nothing is as it's supposed to be: Everything sucks. Everybody's a fake. The church is a bunch of hypocrites. It's a kind of pseudo-sophistication that mistakes stating the obvious for provocative insight. Eugene Peterson (Like Dew Your Youth: Growing Up with Your Teenager, Eerdmans, 1994) puts it this way:

"I don't think...that simply because adolescents sometimes speak in moral tones they suddenly acquire moral authority. Their insights do not suddenly catapult them into a position of superiority. Finding stupidity, intransigence and evil where they did not expect it...is only the beginning of their moral education. Someday they will find it in themselves; and when they do they will no longer be kids."