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A Junior High Survivor’s Vision for Youth
Groups Passionate about Gender Equality
By Sara Lynn Wilhelm
When I was asked to write an article on the
importance of teaching students about gender equality, I
scarcely paused before replying, “Yes, of course!” As you might
guess, I am a survivor of the “junior high experience.”
You may remember this time with fondness, but
more than likely you will recall moments of pain, as
self-discovery resulted in isolation and insecurity. Junior high
was this way for me in many respects. I changed, but my baby
face couldn’t quite catch up to me. I wanted to be an adult, but
also still wanted to remain a kid. And then there was high
school—more time of exploration and discovery as I tried to find
my voice and figure out what my life meant in the midst of a
large world. From junior high all the way through college, I
heard voices telling
me who I should
be.
Not only have I spent the majority of my life
as a student (I tell student groups that I’m in the 20th grade),
but youth ministry has been a continual part of my life. I have
been involved in the lives of students since 1999 as a youth
group leader, teacher and preacher, and school administrator.
During college I began working with a youth group and fell in
love with junior high students. They are at that amazing age
where they are trying to be cool and fit in, but are ready for
real life transformation and authenticity.
It is from both my experience as a student
and from my work with other students that my passion for gender
equality and my pursuit of gender
justice has been formed.
Why Gender Equality and Justice are
Important
The messages young men and women hear in
churches from their elders and peers matter tremendously,
because these words and actions help students form their core
values. My time in youth group has had the most lasting and
profound impact on the person I am today. Through these
experiences, I came to believe my faith with a sort of ownership
I had never known before. I was encouraged to be exactly as God
made me, challenged to follow Christ, and affirmed as a leader.
However, my youth group experience was not
perfect. There were moments when I heard the girls around me so
consumed by outward things that they paid no attention to their
own worth. There were young men who didn’t respect me and made
fun of my passion for Christ.
When I was in junior high, I remember going
on a youth group’s fall retreat. All of the girls drank skim
milk and barely touched their food. I went to the opposite
extreme and had food eating contests with senior high guys who
were twice my size. I felt instinctively that there was
something wrong with a retreat when we all learned about God’s
love but half of us didn’t eat.
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I felt
instinctively that there was something wrong with a
retreat when we all learned about God’s love but
half of us didn’t eat. |
Certain things never made sense to me…like
why the guys were the only ones expected to carry things on the
mission trips (so I muscled 50 pound water jugs on a mission
trip to Mexico to prove that women could do it, too). And I will
never forget challenging guys when they would say that their
wives were going to stay home and cook for them. My 14-year-old
self proudly proclaimed, “Well, when I marry, my husband will
cook for me!”
Jokes that guys told like, “What do you do
when the dishwasher breaks? You beat her,” broke my heart. I
would tell guys who cracked those jokes in youth group that they
were not being funny, and that Christ would never support the
abuse of anyone.
Some people might think that these “small”
things don’t matter, but they do. When I was in junior high, I
went to conferences where they told me that I could change the
world for Christ…and I believed them. I believed them with my
heart and soul and mind…with everything my young self possessed.
As a 7th grader I knew I had a calling to live my life
for Jesus Christ. Above and beyond anything, this was
what really mattered. Yet, many of the girls my age were far
more concerned with the guy they were dating than with God’s
call.
If a young woman never sees women leaders of
significance, and if young men are not taught to respect women
leaders, then our window of opportunity for creating communities
that are about biblical equality and justice is severely
diminished. Gender and justice in youth groups matter because
church should never be the place where young men learn that
their value lies in having power over women and where they are
not expected to respect women as their equals in the kingdom of
God. Nor should church be the place where young women come to
believe that their identity lies in relation to a man.
We should not be the communities that create
new forms of idolatry or support old ones long held dear. We
should be the communities where all are set free to love and
serve, where students receive a vision for biblical equality and
justice that lays the ground work for the rest of their lives.
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We should be the
communities where all are set free to love and
serve, where students receive a vision for biblical
equality and justice that lays the ground work for
the rest of their lives. |
How to Convey Gender Equality to Students
As culture continues to shift, young people
face new challenges, including the sexualization of increasingly
younger women. This trend puts enormous pressure on young women
and girls to emphasize their physical attractiveness. I can
hardly believe how many of the girls I have met and served
struggle with eating disorders and have overwhelming self-image
issues.
That’s why it’s so important to me to become
the type of woman that I want them to be: a woman who, in the
midst of imperfections and my own insecurities, believes that
God has called me and that I am free to be myself and to love
God and others because of the way I know that God loves me.
That’s why I find my voice and challenge young men to respect
their sisters and to love one another as we have been loved.
That’s why, as a leader, I stand in the gap and let guys know
that they will respect the women around them. I do this
lovingly, but I do it intentionally.
As we think about how to convey the message
of biblical equality and justice to students, intentionality
plays an important role in the equation. We must be intentional
about discussing the importance Scripture places on justice and
equality. This means we must deal with injustice in our
students’ actions and lovingly correct them. It means we share
the stories of women of faith as well as men, that we highlight
the feminine and masculine aspects of God, that we seek to
eliminate gender stereotypes and pigeon-holes. It means creating
a space where all are challenged to love Christ and each other
more fully.
We must also be intentional about the kind of
leaders we are and about the kind of communities that we foster
for our students. Over the past few years I have had the
privilege of leading alongside my good friend Ben Lindwall who
is on staff with a church in the city where I live. He has
intentionally invited me in to speak at his youth group over the
past few years, because of his concern that his students were
only hearing the voices of men teaching them the things of God.
Together in leadership we have been able to witness amazing
transformation in the lives of students.
Ben shared with me an experience he and his
wife, Jen, shared when they co-led a trip to Belize this summer.
As Jen led worship for the group, they noticed that some of the
guys were rather aloof. When approached, these guys said that
they just could not get into worship when it was sung with a
woman’s voice.
There were also times when Jen would give
directions (she is an amazing leader!) and some of the guys
would look to Ben as if to make sure it really was what they
needed to do. When they became aware of this, both Jen and Ben
confronted unacceptable ways of treating a woman leader. By
leading together and advocating for one another as equals, they
were intentional about the community they created for their
students.
As I discussed this article with Ben, we
spoke together about how youth ministry is an opportunity for us
to model principles of the kingdom of heaven. Part of that model
is encouraging young men to come under the leadership of women
and having adult men come under the pastoral leadership of
women. It is important that we not just talk about us
being equal, but that we actually create space for women to lead
along with and in authority over men. I love how Ben said it,
“Deconstruction has to take place of the system, and a new
system has to be created.” This is why Ben’s church has decided
to align their youth group structure with this belief in gender
equality.
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It is important
that we not just talk about us being equal,
but that we actually create space for women to lead
along with and in authority over men.
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In a recent move to re-hire, they decided
that all student ministry from grade 5-12 will be led by two
co-pastors: a man and a woman. They will each share the teaching
load, the administration and decision making, and they will
alternate the context in which they speak. The goal is that true
co-pastors will give both the young men and the young women a
vision for a community where justice and equality is a reality,
a community where life and ministry are done together.
An Opportunity like No Other
Youth group and the student experience is a
time full of opportunity. It is our calling and responsibility
as leaders to create communities of faith in which our students
are challenged to transformation. They are a part of our
community today and they will be the leaders of the future. It
is never too soon to help develop a passion for equality and
justice between men and women, young and old, rich and poor, of
all races. And it is never too soon to invite them to
participate in a community like the community Paul desired for
the Galatians, a community where we are all one in Christ.
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Sara Lynn Wilhelm
