For over 10 years I've watched a repetitive truth about teenagers, "They desire to be cared for, but don't want to be known." Casually students are ok with a little knowledge about themselves being out there and since the spur of MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, FormSpring, etc students are willing to create their own identity but the REAL THEM is still hidden.
On a human developmental side of things it is a natural life stage they are going through. They are processing who they really are, what their world really looks like as well as they are re-shuffling the deck on the values & ideals they've always had and its vulnerable to stick your neck out on a limb and share with your peers or the world who they really are for fear of rejection or isolation.
However, they still need to be known because how else can you really care for another person if you don't really know what they are going through?
We started this new series to help address that this year for our high school students;
The premise is each week a student will share their story via video, then after the video I'll do a live 4-5 question interview and open the room up for students in the audience to ask questions of the student up front. Our hope is that this series will challenge our students to continue to "walk across the room" and share life, faith, hope, struggles, joys & everything in between. My hope is the faith example of the student sharing will encourage others to embrace life with Jesus or begin their life with Jesus.
We kicked off Sunday night with a student whose always been a close student to Kim and I--enjoy & feel free to comment your thoughts.
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