Deep Teaching/Preaching and High School Wrestlers

If we listen to the so-called experts, we are forced to believe that “young people” (Gen Y, Post-Gens, teens/twenty-somethings) want absolutely nothing to do with content. All they want is experience.

I beg to differ.

Talking with my 18 and 21 year-old children, they consistently express the frustration that churches are dropping the content ball. “Dad, it’s all fluff.” “The pastor treats the congregation as if all they want is entertainment.” “Where do you go in Evangelical circles to find deep-thinking preaching and teaching related to life?”

Perhaps you think my kids are oddities.

Well, I also happen to coach public high school wrestlers. They don’t want experiences. They don’t want fluff. They don’t want to “just have fun or be entertained.” They want content--they want to know wrestling moves and do what it takes--the hard stuff, to learn those moves.

Wherever I go, “young people” are begging for content. For depth. For expertise. They are sick and tired of being told that truth does not matter to them.

They want to know, as I want to do, who these so-called experts are talking to.

Truth matters.

Content-starved teens and young adults crave truth-applied-to-life.

Whether it is college students or high school wrestlers, it is about time that we reject the silly notion that working with young people means finding some quickie ice breaker, preparing a five-minute “talk” (or worse yet, refusing to prepare and talking off the cuff).

It’s about time that we do the hard work of relating truth to life, which, of course, means believing that Truth exists and doing the hard work of finding the Truth and sharing the Truth--changeless Truth for changing times. Not fluffy experiences for supposed dim-witted young people.

Sorry, had to get that one off my chest . . .