Youth Inclusion in Church Leadership (cont.)
God fantastically wired teen and young adult brains for passion, creativity, and invention. He also wired them for dissatisfaction with mediocrity and status quo, and the demand that things make sense. Oh, and teens are at the pinnacle of learning capacity, which sharply trails off starting in the late 20s.
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Let me reverse-engineer that last paragraph for church leadership to explain why your church needs young people. Not including the highly specialized brains of young people means a group intentionally chooses to continue with the way things are currently done. They embrace a lack of creativity, completely miss cross-current re-direct options, and settle for mediocrity.
Too often, we choose church leaders merely for their donation levels or the impressiveness of their business titles. But the best teams (in any context) intentionally include some divergent thinkers.
Teens and young adults = divergent thinkers.
Youth inclusion in church leadership won’t necessarily lead to brilliance. It can be messy. Teenagers and young adults lack the maturity and experience that, hopefully, others will bring. And I’m certainly not suggesting an entire leadership committee of teens and young adults. A team comprised entirely of divergent thinkers is—I’ll spare you hyperbole—not best.
But the first time that 19-year-old member of the church-oversight committee asks, “Um, can someone explain to me why we’re doing this?” Now you have movement!
