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Mike Snowdon has spent over 15 years as a youth pastor, speaker, student worker and resource creator. For nine of those years he served as a CMS missionary in Spain, and currently is a Youth and Young Adults minister in Sydney and lectures Christian Ethics at Youthworks College. Sam Wan sat down to have a chat with him about how his cross-cultural experience intersected with youth ministry and how we can better engage in youth ministry.


SW: Hey Mike, youve spent over fifteen years in thinking and serving in the youth ministry space. Youve also had the opportunity to do that in two different cultures, in Sydney and in Spain. What struck you as you served in those two settings?

 

Some things never change. Teens still grow up with Disney movies, develop jokes and words that seem strange to other age groups, and love having fun together. They’re learning about their world and how to relate. They’re discovering who they are. And so they still don’t want to be treated like they’re children. They want their parents and leaders to start walking beside them rather than in front. They’re going through adolescence, whether in Spain or Australia.

When our family returned back to Sydney in 2021, I noticed a general higher level of anxiety amongst teens.

But I think that journey feels more complex than it was ten years ago. When our family returned back to Sydney in 2021, I noticed a general higher level of anxiety amongst teens, their parents, schools, society and even churches.

SW: What were some complexities and anxieties that you have been seeing?

Teenagers experienced school and relationships in a very different way from how they do now. And I’ve observed that the COVID period brought out a lot of the anxieties that had already been developing underneath. Technologies like smartphones had already been nudging teens away from relating face-to-face and also reinfored instant gratification and quick answers.

SW: How have you seen that impact the faith of teenagers?

In both Spain and Australia, I experienced a growing tendency for both schools and society to move from the question of “what is true?” to “what is good?” The same question is being asked by younger generations about God: the biggest question I could hear them asking was “How can I know that God is good?”.

The public discourse around the marriage plebiscite in Sydney brought these questions and anxieties to the surface. The surprise for me was seeing that the anxiety levels of Australian teens seemed to have increased more in these years than those of Spanish teens.

SW: How do you think youth ministers (and Christians seeking to relate to or disciple a younger generation) can bring Gods grace to that anxiety?

For me, the first thing that comes to mind is that I need to acknowledge that I am different. It is painfully obvious that I haven’t lived their experience (more so now than ten years ago when I was closer in age and experience to those I lead today!)

I need to acknowledge that I am different … I haven’t lived their experience.

It was exactly like my experience in Spain. From the day I arrived in a foreign country, it was obvious that I was different. I spoke a different language. I thought differently.

This brings me to the second thing: acknowledging that I am weak and need to learn. I made mistakes, cultural misunderstandings and language blunders while learning Spanish. And then I had to learn how to relate to teenagers! They didn’t know what to do with me. It was slow going. But in my weakness, I was forced to trust God and to listen to the teens. It was a wonderful blessing being unable to say much! It made me think back on the ministry I had done in Australia and wonder what would have happened if I’d spent less time talking and more time listening.

SW: Did that experience of weakness and learning make you feel helpless or uncomfortable?

That experience actually gave me a much stronger confidence in God to do his work in the teens, which I trust he will do wherever I am in the world. I trust that his word is good, powerful and clear. So in my weakness, I am confident to read God’s word with teens and know that, despite our differences, God will show them the goodness of Jesus in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I saw teens in Spain getting together in their schools to read the Bible, and that was with stronger opposition, less training and fewer numbers than Aussie Christian teens have. So I’m not anxious about all the changes or about differences. I trust that God can do more through my weakness than I can through my strength, so I seek to faithfully walk alongside the teens, listening to them and reading God’s word with them.

I know that I can’t change them—I’m hopelessly weak. I don’t pretend like I’m the same as them. But our training and experience have made me feel more comfortable and confident in that space than I was before leaving Australia.

SW: Considering the path ahead for our younger generation, what do you think are the major challenges that we have yet to engage with, and how do we prepare ourselves for that?

There has been a growing divide between generations, not only in the last ten years but also in the decades before. I think this is continuing to grow on a societal level, especially as new technologies increase those gaps. The easy thing seems to be to retreat from intergenerational relationships, leaving youth ministry to those closest in experience and age, because “young people understand each other better.” But as these divides increase, so do the anxieties where teenagers feel more alone and unvalued. They need Christians of all ages in their lives who long to understand them, even if that process is hard. They need people who have developed confidence in the goodness of God’s word and who will walk alongside them as they discover their own confidence. We can prepare ourselves for this by creating more spaces in our churches, youth groups and midweek activities for these relationships to occur.

Teenagers feel more alone and unvalued. They need Christians of all ages in their lives.

The other major challenge is the growing mistrust in the goodness of God’s word coupled with the tendency for teens to have an instant answer (thanks in part to not-so-smart phones!). One response is to offer shorter answers to their questions. This has its place, but as a staple, it develops a dependency on the answer-giver. Instead, we want them to develop confidence in the goodness of God’s word. That comes with time, exposure and example as God’s Spirit does his work in their hearts. We can prepare for this first by checking our own confidence in the goodness of God’s word. We can practice what we preach by reading the Bible regularly for ourselves and going to it as our primary source for considering the goodness of things.

Finally, we can review how we do youth ministry, making sure that teens have enough support as they to learn to read the Bible for themselves; given space to wrestle with questions; exposed to examples of faithful confident Bible reading. This is what I tried to do in my book, A New Freedom. I take on various complex topics, but instead of giving simple answers, I walk the teen through various Bible texts to give an example of how doing that will always lead us to see the goodness of Jesus over that of our world. I’d love to see more resources developed with a similar angle. Are we up for it, Sam?


See Mike answering questions about A New Freedom (purchase link) in this video:

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