My mom always said I was different.  “When I was in school,” she used to say, “I believed the things the teacher told me.   But you… you have to go out and try everything for yourself.  Why is that?”  Why indeed. 

My grandfather is a vegetable gardener, and the arch enemy of vegetable gardeners are rabbits.  So he strung up a small, 2-wire, low voltage, electric fence to keep them out.   When my brother Steven was 12, he asked how it worked, but the explanation wasn’t enough.  He wanted to touch it, and when he did, he got zapped, just like Grandpa said he would.   Then after he explained more about electricity and grounding, he thought it’d be a good idea to grab the fence’s grounding rod and the wire at the same time.   OUCH!   He really got zapped on that one.  The words weren’t enough… he had to experience it.

Over the last 20 years, there is something that has changed in the way teens view the world around them.   They don’t take things at face value anymore.   Teens always wanted to push the limits, but they used to believe you when you told them things.   Now they want to test what they hear & experience everything for themselves.   Steven’s fence experience is a perfect example.   Young children have always been this way.  Don’t believe me?  Tell a young child that it’s a bad idea to stick a fork in the electrical outlet, and they’ll ask you, “why?” as they go running out of the room to go find a fork.

We’ve all heard the expression “I can talk till I’m blue in the face & they still don’t listen.”  It’s true.  We’ve all experienced that.   It makes me wonder if its time to change our technique.  Sometimes we need to talk less and lead more. 

I recently read an article on teaching our kids the value of serving others and being generous.   And it pointed out that those are not concepts that can be taught, as much as they need to modeled by the parents.  After all, we can’t lead our kids places we’re not willing to go ourselves.  And then we need to provide our teens with opportunities to be generous with their money, as well as their time through service.

I work with the teens at Ground Zero every week.  As we discuss what God has to say about the way we should live our lives, some of the most vivid illustrations usually come from our own experiences.  That’s why we’ve incorporated mission opportunities into our youth ministry for years.

We used to take week long trips each summer to the Carolina’s to paint and roof homes of low income families.   One of our students asked why we were driving so far when there are people right here in our own communities that need the same type of assistance.   So we shifted our focus closer to home & started a program called Project: RAKE offering free home repairs to low income families & senior citizens and giving teens the opportunity to serve others in their community.

Five times a year, we offer weekend work days where high school age teens & young adults have the opportunity to serve their communities and minister the love of God to in-need families across Southern Chester County, specifically between Nottingham and Kennett Square.  Teens don’t want to hear about the benefits of serving others… they desire to get out there and do it.   They want to experience it for themselves.   And as they experience it, they learn several powerful life truths like… It’s better to give than to receive; we all need to give something back to the community we live in; we should value and think about others, not just ourselves.

And we’ve seen the results in what the students have said after the weekends.  You hear things like, “I’m amazed how much the little things like fixing a sink or replacing a light bulb make a difference.  You can see the difference it makes.”  “It’s neat to get to work with so many different people from all these different youth groups.  I made a lot of new friends this weekend.”  “I never knew that I had the ability to put a new roof on someone’s house, hook up a light switch or install a toilet.”  “It helps me be less selfish.  Doing Project Rake reminds me how blessed I really am.”  “Our homeowner was just so thankful for what we did for her.  It humbled me.”  “It was really cool to see God working through us to love on this family.  It really made me feel good about what we were doing.”   These students all took something powerful away from the work weekend.   God taught each of them something different.  

It all comes back to their desire to get out there and experience things for themselves.   Sometimes that desire makes parenting hard.  Other times, we can channel that desire, and use it to teach our teens valuable things about life.  We want to give teens opportunities to explore their world, change people’s lives & experience all that God has for them.

Drew Cope is the Youth Director of the Ground Zero Youth Ministry at New London Presbyterian Church and the Site Coordinator for Project Rake.   For more info, visit www.ProjectRake.com or call 610-869-7332