Getting Cultured - Part 2

There was a story told of missionaries who traveled to Africa. They began having conversations with some people in a certain village when the Gospel story was shared. The missionaries used the color black to represent sin and the color white to represent being cleansed of sin. The tribesmen shook their heads in disagreement. “No!” They said, “Black is clean!” The missionaries tried to explain the colors again, with no luck. It seemed, to the missionaries, that these men were under some voodoo-like spell and they actually believed sin was clean!

The tribesmen kept disagreeing with the missionaries until one man figured out what was going on. To a black tribesman in Africa, white represented being dirty because the only time they were dirty was when the white sand from the land or white ash from a fire got on their skin. They would have to wash off the dirt or ash in order to be made clean. To them, white really did represent being dirty and black really did represent being washed clean. This is why it is always important to know the audience we are trying to reach before we reach out to them. If we misunderstand teens we might jump to wrong conclusions and respond inappropriately to them.

In his book, “Youth Ministry 3.0” Mark Oestreicher helps frame the youth culture from it’s humble beginnings. Adolescence is a term that found popularity in the early twentieth century by a man named G. Stanley Hall, who taught that adolescence was the period between puberty and adulthood. When Hall described adolescence, he was talking about a period of time eighteen months long. In the early 1900s, the average age for the onset of puberty in girls was 14.5. (pg. 31-32)

Note: Researchers who study the onset of puberty pretty much always study girls. The reasons are that the signs are much more visually obvious with girls than with guys and that girls are more likely to talk about puberty than guys are. In fact, guys tend to lie about the whole thing! But researchers tend to agree that guys will usually be about a year or so behind girls in puberty and maturity. (pg. 130)

So, in the early 1900s adolescence for girls began at about the age of 14.5 and lasted until around the age of 16, when the girl was considered an adult by society. So adolescence lasted for about eighteen months. Fast forward to today. According to The National Center for Biotechnology Information:

“Adolescence begins with the onset of physiologically normal puberty, and ends when an adult identity and behaviour are accepted. This period of development corresponds roughly to the period between the ages of 10 and 19 years, which is consistent with the World Health Organization’s definition of adolescence.” (Canadian Paediatric Society. "Age Limits and Adolescents." The National Center for Biotechnology Information. November 2003. Accessed June 1, 2016. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2794325/.)

I don’t know if the changes for the age of puberty are due to better scientific methods, (that we are seeing the same truth with better clarity) or that there is a change in the environmental conditions and diets of young people, but as you can see, adolescence has now been extended from eighteen months in 1900 to at least nine years today! And new brain research is suggesting that, cognitively speaking, it may be longer. Ronald Kotulak, of the Chicago Tribune, published an article in 2006 with the following information:

“Brain scientists like to joke that car rental companies must have the best neuroscientists because they won’t let a person rent a car until age 25. But the real reason is clear to any actuary: Every year between 5,000 and 6,000 teenagers are killed in motor vehicle accidents and 300,000 are injured. Teen crashes are not just caused by showing off, substance abuse, aggression, thrill seeking or speeding, although they play a role, said Jay N. Giedd. Recent research suggests that an important culprit is the immaturity of the teenage brain and its lack of multitasking skills--especially in boys. The last part of the brain to mature is the prefrontal cortex, Giedd said, which may not fully develop until the mid-20s.” (emphasis added) (Kotulak, Ronald. "Teens at the Wheel: A SPECIAL REPORT." Teens Driven to Distraction, March 24, 2006, 2. Accessed June 1, 2016. http://www.illiniwest.org/pages/uploaded_files/6_driven_to_distra_due 9_10.pdf.)

So, according to Jay N. Giedd, chief of brain imaging at the National Institute of Mental Health child psychiatry branch, we can’t expect full-fledged adults until their mid-twenties! If adolescence begins at the age of ten and doesn’t fully end until the mid-twenties then that means adolescence jumped from eighteen months in 1900 to almost fifteen years today!

Why are we looking at these statistics? Because we have to understand how much our society has changed in the past 100+ years. There was a time not too long ago when the term teenager didn’t exist. Before the 1900s, you were either a child or an adult. There was no such thing as a youth culture. Therefore, student ministry was not even a twinkle in Jim Rayburn’s eyes.

Some could say student ministry is unbiblical because the Bible never speaks of age-segregating. Some would say student ministry needs to be abandoned due to the lack of scriptural references. And they are right! There is NO SCRIPTURAL REFERENCES for student ministry. But...there's a reason for that! Read the next post to learn more!