Video Transcript: Youth Today

Let's talk about youth today, a statement here. Far too many onlookers view  urban youth as thugs in the making, but loving moms see their children as  cathedrals at risk. Again, the crisis we've talked about this before, that youth  ages 12 to 24 they suffer more violent crime than any other age group in the  United States, but homicide leading cause of death among African American  youth from ages 15 to 24 and in a study of inner city seven year olds, they've  experienced a tremendous amount of violence. They've seen a lot, a lot of a lot  of negative things. And it's a global concern, a global concern. Well, let's take a  look at this challenge. There's a story. Something happened a few years ago,  when there were a number of riots that took place, racial riots, struggles  between police and youth. A few years ago, and during one of these riots, a  mother spotted her child, her son, in the crowd, near hysteria, and this was  caught on tape. She grabbed and slapped him. She screamed expletives as she pulled him out of the mob. And then later on, she was interviewed, that scene  caught national attention, and she was being interviewed, and in the process of  being interviewed, she made this statement. She said, Is he a perfect son? She  said, No, but he's mine, and that's where I made the observation, not just from  this, but just from working with kids for years that far too many onlookers will  view youth as thugs in the making, whereas their moms don't see them that way. Loving moms see their children as cathedrals at risk. What does it mean to be at risk? Many times when we say a young person is an at risk youth, we're talking  about the character of the young person. But that's not really what it means to  be at risk. Is not pointing to the child. It is pointing to the surroundings. It  describes young people whose environment makes them most vulnerable to  violence, abuse and delinquency. Now, one might say that, given today's media  and music influence, one might say that all children are at risk, but the setting  that's most associated with the phrase is the inner city, those depressed urban  sectors within major metropolitan areas, the population consists of the less  educated and more impoverished. It's a predominant minority presence in the  US. It could be mostly African American or Latino or Asian American, and it's  characterized by a higher crime rate than other areas in the city. So at risk  environments really exist in every segment of our society, including rural, urban  and even Suburban. So what does it mean to grow up urban? For youth,  growing up urban, a dynamic interplay of developmental forces takes place. I  mean, inwardly, they're going through adolescence. They're going through the  physiological, psychological changes, cognitively, emotionally, you have  emerging adults that are wrestling with matters of self, identity, capacity, belief  and direction. Now, everyone, all youth, take this developmental journey, but  those in at risk environments do so through a particular sociocultural grid, the  inner city where. Are formative adolescent development strains against such  negative forces as poverty, family brokenness and a culture of violence. You  have to navigate life in the context of survival and it's all about the code of the 

street. The street culture has evolved a code of the street which amounts to a  set of informal rules governing interpersonal, public behavior, and particularly  violence. So the city is filled with all kinds of people. There are good kids and not so good kids, kids that are from healthy families and kids that are from broken  families. You have parents and grandparents. There are all kinds of people in  the city, but what is amazing is that all are impacted. Behaviors are defined by  the code of the street, and so the code has an identity shaping influence on the  lives of every person in the urban community. It's very important for a youth  leader who's seeking to seeking transformation and change in young people to  understand the role of the code, the influence the code has on everyone in the  city, so the pressure brought on by the code forces youth that are that are  lacking a counterbalancing environment to abandon or at least stifle their quest  for Identity in favor of the more immediate need for survival. So this has  tremendous implications for youth ministry number one, as we've all said, on a  global scale, youth are in trouble, and a significant number of leaders because  of the the expansion of the of youth on the globe, a significant number of leaders in the next generation are going to come out of and probably have to deal with  people in higher risk communities, the code of the street is the greatest threat to  positive youth development today, it is for youth growing up urban the squeeze  that is shaping their identity and their worldview, as Paul says in Romans, do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, or do not let the world squeeze you  into its mold, but rather be transformed by the renewing of your mind. We'll talk  about this later. When he says, Do not allow the world to squeeze you. It really  is saying, Stop allowing. Stop allowing something that has been happening in  your life since birth, the squeezing or the conforming forces that are shaping  you, and instead replace it with start being transformed. We'll talk about this  later, but the code of the street is that pressure on young people that is shaping  their identity, that is impacting them, that is threatening the identity that God has  given them in the divine imprint, today's youth leaders are strategically  positioned to make an impact on this troubled generation. It's interesting when  you look at youth ministers and how people see youth ministry. People treat it in  different ways. Many times, people go into, want to go into adult ministry, and  they go there through the avenue of working with kids first. There are many who  say, Yeah, work with them, but the expectations and assumptions are very low.  The basic idea is to get them through adolescence, get them through this  troublesome time of life. You can get them through and they can make it through school and into adulthood without getting damaged too much. Then you've done your job that isn't working. We need to realize that you. Youth leaders today are  strategically positioned to make a difference. We're positioned we can have an  impact on a future generation of leaders. I would encourage you in your reading  to pick up Elijah Anderson's book, code of the street, decency, violence and the  moral life of the inner city, will help you get in touch with what the dynamics are, 

the the issues are in working with troubled with troubled youth, I've heard many  times, I've sat in on youth meetings, and I've heard adults share the Gospel. And I thought of what Isaiah said that he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with  grief. And I would sit there and think, you know, these young people would never pick up on Jesus being acquainted with their sorrow, being a man of sorrow and  

acquainted with their grief from our the way the gospel is being presented to  them, we need to bring Jesus to the point of felt Need, and we must understand  what that felt need is. We'll talk more about that later.