I read two things this week that I think are worth your attention, and so I'm passing them along.
The first is an article called Why Church Kids Must Go Bad by Andrew Root which is as provocative as the title suggests but oh so true. His contention is that
The model of adolescent faith is not shiny, happy kids, but honest kids, that in joy confess a God who works in backwards ways, in ways where the first are last, and the suffering are embraced, where all who taste death are promised God’s very presence. They are not good kids that avoid all that is bad, but faithful kids that go into the world to seek God in the real, in the reality of existence, which is both beautiful and horrible.
Beautifully said.
And this hypothesis is beautifully illustrated in the YA novel Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr.
Fifteen-year-old Samara Taylor is a pastor's kid in a small town trying to survive one hot dry summer. Her family is broke in more ways than one. Her mother is in court-ordered rehab after a DUI, and everyone knows, but no one has said anything. Her father is working 70 hours a week caring for everyone else, but not his own daughter. And then, just to ratchet the pressure up some more, another member of her youth group is abducted.
You will wince at Samara's bitter depictions of the shiny, happy world of youth ministry. She describes a poster that
shows a bunch of multicultural-looking teens in fashions from five years ago, falling all over each other on comfy couches, big smiles on their fresh faces, surrounded by pillows. One of them holds a Bible and a notebook in his lap. On the bottom of the poster are big yellow capital letters:
COMMUNITY HAPPENS!
Don't forget the exclamation point. Everything for The Youth has exclamation points.
I can see this being a great book for a mentor and youth to read together--especially if one of your confirmands is the pastor's kid. It's a deeply faithful book that avoids the shiny, happy trap, but reveals the faithful life of a young person beloved of God.
Enjoy!