Do Hard Things - Session 3 "The Myth of Adolescence

11th October 2009



What an amazing evening we had as we gathered the 15-19's together for the third session of 'Do Hard Things.'

Here are the highlights from the evening;

• The word 'teenager' was only first documented in 1941 in the publication of Readers Digest! That's only 68 years ago! The word isn't a problem, it's the expectation level that's been attached to it over the last few decades.

• The term 'adolescence' literally means "to grow up" and we looked at the issue with the modern understanding that allows, encourages, and even trains young people to remain childish for much longer than necessary. It holds teenagers back from their full potential for what God created them to do.

• We looked at the incredible stories of 3 teenagers who accomplished great things over the last few centuries (p31 of the book). Young men and women went from children straight into adulthood...we can learn a lot from history!

• Since the Bible has been around a little longer than the 'Readers Digest' the Bible doesn't say anything about teenagers. But God's Word does talk about the transition from child to an adult...
  

• I took the young people through the build up to David and Goliath (David was around 17 years of age!). Why not check out the full account in 1 Samuel chapter 17.

• I spoke about how the young people need to be careful how they communicate via things like text messaging and Facebook; including the issue of telling the world 'I'm bored!"
  

• Finally we asked the groups to discuss what expectations do they think Jesus has for their lives?

• We closed the evening with a time for the young people to be prayed for, many did as they desire to be continually changed by the incredilbe power of Jesus Christ.