The Invitation to Interpretation

This summer while Katie and I were staying in downtown San Diego for a holiday weekend away, we were craving some really good Mexican food—one of our favorite types of food. No really knowing the area, we turned to our phones and pulled up Yelp to help us find a local Mexican food establishment. With one click, we found out we were only blocks away form a highly rated Mexican restaurant.

As we entered into the restaurant, we did what every person does when they enter into a new environment: we looked around, took in our surroundings and our brains started answering internal questions at a rapid pace. Who is in this restaurant? Am I dressed appropriately? What does the décor communicate? How expensive is this place? Do I fit in here? What do I have to do to fit in?

After sitting, Katie and I looked at each other and through nonverbal communication we both knew we did not fit in. The restaurant/ bar was filled with 20-30somethings on the prowl for alcohol and physical intimacy.

After sitting at a table of our choosing, I turned to Katie and yelled over the loud music, “I could not feel more old and married right now.”

As humans, we are what are known as “hermeneutical creatures.” In other words, we are always interpreting our surroundings. We can’t help it; it’s a natural part of who we are and how God made us. We are always trying to make sense of the world around us and ask the questions: Do I fit in? How should I act? What do I do? Who am I?

Teenagers are a little different from adults in this respect: they are hermeneutical creatures “on steroids”—they over-interpret everything. They are not only wondering Do I fit in? How should I act? They are asking themselves questions like: What does my shirt communicate about me? What does that look mean? Does my hair look good?  

Teenagers do this because they are in the process of trying to figure out who they are. This journey has vastly changed over the last 10 years. Teenage brains have been trained to take in more information than any previous generation because they were raised in a digital age: an age where they have had to process and take in information at a quick pace. As teens and many 20-somethings take in information they then process and interpret the information quicker than their older counterparts. Therefore, teens and 20-somethings are better at, and desire to, participate in interpreting information more than the generations of the past.

For instance, during lunch with a teenager a few weeks ago, she was talking to me about some teacher as her Christians school and how she felt like they “shove information down her throat” and expect her to just “buy-in” to what they are saying. In other words, they were teaching her what to believe about the Bible by making her learn information theological claims and memories Biblical texts. Never did they stop and ask her to work to interpret the information she was supposed to be taking in. She did not like this model to say the least.

As her youth pastor, I asked her a question: “Do you feel like I do that?”

She just looked at me as said, “No, you invite us to create our own options and have our own reflections on the Bible. If you did what they do, I would just stop coming.”

I could not help but feel good that God had used me to create an environment that invited teens into a place where they felt like they could wrestle with God and develop their own options on scripture.

After I left my lunch with this student, my conversation with this girl stayed with me, I could not stop thinking about what she had said. I started to really wonder if there was a drastic cultural shift happening that was far larger than I had realized.

A month later I was reading a book called, Unpacking Scripture in Youth Ministry by a Lutheran Youth Ministry Writer named Andrew Root. In the book, Root talks about this cultural shift within youth and makes this point: “Therefore, our pursuit when it comes to young people and the Bible is not to fill them up with information, but to invite them into the action of interpretation” (pg. 37).

Root believes that our role in the life of youth is to help them not “know the Bible,” but to “encounter the God who makes Godself know through the Bible” (pg. 37).

As I read Root’s book, a thought occurred to me: What if adults, schools, parents, and the church started to help people process information in this way? Instead of talking at youth and adults, what if we started to view learning as inviting people into a conversation where God was present?

I know this would be more work and take more time, but as culture changes and information becomes more available, learning will become less about memorization and more about invitation. This means that there must be a shift in the way that we help the emerging generations encounter God. Pastors can on longer prompt teens and 20-somethings to memorize and recite articles of faith. Pastors must work to create a space where people are invited to reflect and process the information within community.

One thing we have started to do in our high school ministry is to create what we call, “small group conversations.” These small groups happen right after a message is given. We then number off the teens into random groups of 5 to 7, each with a volunteer leader and one student leader. We then invite the student leader to lead a conversation with the help of questions. Our hope is that in during this group, teens will process the lesson and dig into the Bible together.

The reason we randomly number off the teens is so that they always have new options and insights to challenge the way they think about scripture. At the same time, through this exercise teens get to meet new people that they might not normally try to build a relationship with.

Whether you are a pastor, volunteer, parent, or teen; during this next week, how are you going to invite someone to encounter God with you through reading scripture and having a conversation?