Teens love highly spiritualized things like prayer, but not if they involved discipline- like personal holiness.

Teens tend to be so open to spiritual things. The more spiritual that it seems= the more attracted they are to it, but if it involves anything physical, for the most part, they check out.

A typical post-modern teen’s perspective:

Prayer= good. Silent meditation= good. Anything candles= good. Angels= good. Talk of spirits or even ghosts= really good…etc…

But, raising your hands in worship to God= bad. Singing along with others in worship to Jesus= bad. Stepping out to help someone from a different social group= bad. Abstinence= bad. Abstaining from alcohol= bad…etc…

A chrisitan-cult called Gnosticism started shortly after the beginnings of Christianity. It taught that anything related to the spirit was good and anything related to the body was bad. They used this as an excuse for sinning. Any time a Gnostic would commit a carnal sin they would blame it on the evil body. They would say that their soul had been saved by Jesus, so it didn’t matter what their bodies did, leading to great complacencies in anything physical amongst the Gnostics.

Gnosticism, although not existing per say as an organized religion today, is alive and well in the Church and amongst our teens. This idea that anything we do that is spiritual is good and makes up for what we do that is physical, so it doesn’t matter what I do with my body.

Gnostics tend to ignore the fact that God made us as corporate beings of body, soul, and spirit and that God intended us to live being aware of our entire existence as body, soul, and spirit. They tend to ignore the fact that when Jesus returns, that all of His followers will be given resurrected bodies and that we won’t be some bodiless ghost wondering about throughout eternity.

We must encourage young people today to love God with their bodies, as well as their spirits.

I see a lot of young people who grow up in homes with very little income. Where in the past, you would see many people use the memories of their impoverished childhood to spur on a change with their lives; today it seems to be the opposite.

So many teens because of their poor attitudes, outlooks, work ethic, and lack of transportation tend to blame everyone else and make themselves the victim. Everyone else is the perpetrator and they are always being victimized.

I believe the answer to this lies with the other answers, that because they are not engaged in the real world, and because they rely on others who do operate in the real world to provide for them; they feel like its those people who wronged them when they didn’t get their needs met by relying on others.

I’m not sure why they are not engaging themselves in the real world and (instead) rely on others to. I’m sure it has to do something with their crappy upbringings with sorry excuses for parents, but I’m not sure when everything changed. I’m not sure when or why their parents became lousy either, but I’m sure it had something to with their parents and I’m sure that began sometime in the sixties?

When I turned sixteen (only 12 years ago), the first thing that you did when turned sixteen, was get your freak’n driver’s license, but not today. It is almost uncool today (to get your driver’s license).

 This is very confusing to me. I’m not sure if this is something that is prominent in only my area or a trend taking place all over?

 A driver’s license used to be synonymous with freedom, but today there is almost a fear attached to getting one.

 This, I believe, directly relates to the teenage work ethic issue that I brought up earlier, but I’m not sure. There is also a growing segment of older teens and young adults who don’t want to move out of their parent’s homes, as I mentioned earlier, that I believe correlates to the driver’s license issue.

 I still think it all comes down to distracting things that fill the void of people’s true needs that make other things seem not so important to them. And because their needs are met elsewhere, they have to rely on others, who live and interact in the real world, to provide for them money, food, clothing, shelter, and of course- when needed- transportation.

Teenagers today seem to have NO work ethic.  

There is no desire to have a job, to work hard, to earn money, to move out of their parent’s home, to get married, to have children, etc…

The only explanation that I can come up with for this is that they are finding their fulfillment by other means: i.e. video games, the internet (specifically social networking sites that require no real human interaction), reality television, pornography, etc….but ultimately I’m not sure why?

I know that I’m not very old. I’m only 28, so I don’t want to sound old, but times REALLY have changed since I was a teenager. I wasn’t a sheltered child so it’s not like all of the weird things that are happening today were happening regularly then, but just without me noticing it. The norm, somehow, has drastically changed and unfortunately it’s not for the good.

There are some positive things about this generation and I love them and care for them deeply, but to be honest, I am worried about them. I have noticed many strange trends since becoming a youth pastor.

Throughout this series I will post a random assortment of a few of these trends. I’m not claiming to be an expert and I’m not claiming that some of these trends are worse than others, but here are some observations none the less: