Part of the brain thing and extended adolescence is also connected to pornography and intense video gaming and their effects (some of which pertain to addiction). pornography will actually rewire the brain in some aspects.

The other thing i didn’t see here was an emphasis on discipleship in younger kids. If you wait until they are 15 you have missed the boat. Discipleship needs to drop back to 6 and 8 year olds, especially in gender specific settings. It is not just knowledge, which we tend to be good at, but the living out of that knowledge where the church misses the boat. Not doing this means the youth program is much more rehabilitation rather than empowerment.

I spent last year working with middle schoolers at my church which was a challenging and fun experience. It is difficult when you want to hang out with your fellow staff members but you know you should take responsibility and say “no, I’m not here for myself, I’m here for these kids and if that means I have to walk into a group that I don’t know or talk about things I don’t have a huge intrest in, or make myself look ridiculous then so be it.” All through middle school and high school in youth ministry the students are the ones being catered too-it’s easy for us. It was not until the roles were reversed that I realized how hard student ministry can be.

I wish that I was given more opportunities when I was 17 to learn how to be responsible and be a good leader/adult. I think that there are plenty of talented and willing students who want to step up, but most don’t know how and are to intimidated to say anything. They aren’t willing to do hard things.

We recently visited friends that we hadn’t seen for years. The parents micro-managed everything. The kids didn’t trust themselves to make a decision. It then dawned on me that we have given our kids the ability to mature without me being very aware of it. I’m so thankful. (John really is the great parent between the two of us.)

Our society, In an effort to parent in a way that keeps our kids from “making the same mistakes I did” have taken responsibility from them. We have to have contact with them via cell phone constantly. Why?

I was also extremely encouraged by our new college freshmen at church as they entered into jr. high staff at Calvary. They are awesome. I have seen them step in while the youth pastors were at camp, or on a missions trip, and they have rocked it. Great leadership skills and great maturity. It is so refreshing.

John and I are now working with mentoring the Jr. High staff. Can’t wait!

I appreciate the intentionality you put behind a topic like this and others revolving around human development and implications for ministry. Your thinking prompts me to explore different ideas as they intermingle with developmental issues.

The most potent comment of your post was in your point about how many 18-21 year olds seem to skip or side-step the extended adolescence stage. You said, “what is required? in short: meaningful responsibility and expectation.” I think you hit the nail on the head here. Everything you mentioned comes back to empowerment and equipping of leaders.

I am a 22 year old recent college graduate who has been hired at a church as the middle school youth pastor. I have felt a calling to middle school ministry for years and spent my college years studying, reading, and experiencing hands-on middle school ministry in preparation for an opportunity like this job I have recently begun. I come with full humility to this position, recognizing that I still have much to learn and a lot of wisdom to gain. However, the reason I am confident to take this position as a 22 year-old is because of the “meaningful responsibility and expectation” given to me at my former church where I volunteered with the middle school for 4 years. There was intentional MENTORING and follow-up. The leadership empowered me and left me room to make mistakes so I could learn. Was there risk on their part? Absolutely. But I am able to confidently take a position as a middle school pastor because of their willingness to give me MORE, not LESS, responsibility.

Granted, this is an isolated experience about which I am biased, but I don’t think I am the exception. I think 18-21 year olds are eager to learn and be mentored in ministry. Where does brain development come in? As one person already commented, the brain is plastic, and is therefore moldable, in a sense. Some research indicates a person reaches the peak of cognitive development at age 25. The years before this age, then, are pivotal for formation. Paul and Timothy had one such relationship where Paul intentionally mentored and walked Timothy through what it looks like to be a part of Kingdom-work. And what did he say after he let him go on his own? “Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young.”

As a 22-year-old middle school pastor, I am glad people empowered and equipped me for ministry instead of “waiting” until I was older. Again, I say this with humility, knowing I have so much to learn and so much wisdom to gain from my mentors. But I know I will never relegate any 18-21 year old to a lesser position of leadership simply because he or she may or may not make a bad decision once in a while.

My concern, after reading your article marko, is that our church seems to be able to get young adults involved and responsible (with awesome results) so easily and (here enters the problem) we can’t get that with our older adults and parents. Well, especially parents.

I’m a new parent (first child, 6 months old). I’m getting a glimpse of what it is like to have multiple children in school and sports and band. I’ve seen a dramatic drop in leadership roles assumed by parents. DRAMATIC. I see them plugged in to our council, altar guild, quilters, men’s breakfast group, and serving during worship. Outside of that we are seeing younger and young adults working with our children and students.

So my QUESTION is, what can we do to get older adults and parents involved to help/come-alongside these young adults who are taking on the responsibilities in areas where older adults just AREN’T committing themselves?

After five years of this I radically changed my strategy. Instead of building new programs to hang on to older adolescents, I starting removing programs from my youth program. If they were old enough for adult mission trips (16 in our case) then I sent them on adult mission trips. If they were ready for adult bands them we sent them to be a part of the regular rotation. At every possible point, I tried to slowly limit the duplication between the youth program and the rest of the church so that by the time a student graduated, they already had major connections of service, study and socialization with the adult church. It is hard to drift away after graduation when you are already on the adult band rotation or already attending a small group that is half adults.

This killed our college ministry of course. But that was great. We still had social events for that age group and we had one Sunday School class for those who hadn’t yet gotten on board and for the many who had moved to the area for college and hadn’t been in youth groups that focused on transitioning to adulthood. But even this class was designed by me to be transitional. I taught a two year rotation of materials so that it would not make sense to be there all four years.

Finally another change we made was to explicitly talk to the senior high youth group about my goal to make them ready for the adult culture in 4 years and I talked a lot to the broader church about the importance of them including 16+ year-old members as full members. They could serve on committees with real responsibilities etc. It was a church wide commitment to challenge people to become adults.

Thanks for using your platform to bring up the challenge to our culture both inside and outside the church.