Young People

by Todd Bowman
ILC Director

Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity. (1 Timothy 4:12)

This week, I reflect on the first portion of the Impact Learning Center’s vision statement – young people.

YOUNG PEOPLE using their God-given strengths to make a positive and powerful difference in their world.

In many, if not most youth programs, adults drive the decision making. Adults decide what topics to study. Adults decide what games to play. Adults research the difficulties associated with being an adolescent and adults develop programs based on what they believe youth need.

However, an interesting tenant of positive youth development, also known as strengths-based youth development, is that it does not demand waiting for youth to become old enough and mature enough to trust them with important decisions. It is an approach which does not demand waiting for a young person to grow into leadership.

Instead it is an approach which trusts young people and gives them a powerful voice in shaping their future. It is a philosophy which recognizes that all young people have the capacity to lead, regardless of whether they are in preschool, elementary school, middle school, or high school. It is a set of principles which recognizes that all youth, regardless of the difficult issues or circumstances in their lives, have the capacity to use the assets they currently have to make a positive difference in their community.

I am reminded of a quote by John Perkins, the co-founder and chairman of the Christian Community Development Association and a man who has faithfully ministered to the poor for the past forty years, who said the following at the 2006 CCDA Conference:

Everybody has beauty to unveil. Everybody. Because we bear the image of God.

My favorite definition of this strengths-based approach to youth work is taken from the book More Than Just a Place to Go by Yvonne Pearson:

Positive youth development views youth as resources to be engaged rather as problems to be fixed. P. viii

If one truly believes the statement above, it can’t help but transform your approach to working with youth. In the field of urban youth ministry, where young people are often labeled, categorized, and described with such words as poverty, violence, drugs, and many other negative associations, this approach is even radical.

Is the Impact Learning Center perfect in this endeavor of engaging all young people as leaders rather than trying to fix them? No. But mentally, our organization has made the shift. We are asking different questions. We are considering new possibilities. We are open to a new path.

What will the Impact Learning Center and City Impact look like a year from now? While I can’t answer that question with any certainty, I do know that young people will assist in leading the way.