• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Building Faith

Building Faith

  • HOME
  • ABOUT
    • Who We Are
    • Our Writers
    • Author Guidelines
    • FAQs
    • Subscribe
    • Contact Us
  • ARTICLES
    • Articles by Topic
    • Most Recent Articles
  • EN ESPAÑOL
  • RESOURCES
    • Curriculum Center
    • Intergenerational Resources
    • Vacation Bible School
    • Webinars
    • Episcopal Teacher
  • SUPPORT US
  • Show Search
Hide Search
Home/Youth Ministry/Show Up and Listen: Ministering with Teens

Show Up and Listen: Ministering with Teens

 

 

Driving back from a splendid Western Christian Educators’ Conference (WCEC) gathering at Tahoe with keynoters Rodger Nishioka and Lisa Kimball along with seventy or so ecumenically gathered educators I was listening to Terry Gross’s Fresh Air on the radio.  Something Lisa Kimball said in one of her presentations about ministering with youth, making “show up, listen, and tell the truth” a rule of life resonated as I drove and listened.  With all the genuine virtues of digital connectivity, Sherry Turkle, founder of the M.I.T. initiative on technology and the self (and professor at M.I.T.) had me wondering how many times I and any of us fall short of showing up and listening.

And after three and a half days of WCEC, everything in the interview resonated as useful concern for anyone committed to Christian formation of adults (parents and others), youth and children.

Here’s one piece that really struck me (read this and think about Christian formation, relationships, and coming to terms with what it takes to sustain relationship and grow in compassion and love):

When Turkle asked teens and adults why they preferred text messaging over face-to-face conversation, they responded that when you’re face to face, “you can’t control what you are going to say, and you don’t know how long it’s going to take or where it could go.” But Turkle believes that these perceived weaknesses of conversation are actually conversation’s strengths. Face-to-face interaction teaches “skills of negotiation, of reading each other’s emotion, of having to face the complexity of confrontation, dealing with complex emotion,” Turkle says. She thinks people who feel they are too busy to have conversations in person are not making the important emotional connections they otherwise would.

Notice Lisa’s third practice, “tell the truth” in “having to face the complexity of confrontation, dealing with complex emotion.”

The whole interview is well worth listening to and might inspire some fresh thinking about programs in church to support specific conversational practices at home, perhaps beginning with a parents group to listen to the interview, reflecting on how it sounds like home and what changes in practice we might support one another making from hearing it Read excerpts of the text here.

Other highlights include children and youth’s experience of distracted parents (digital devices in hand in the playground and at the dinner table) and teaching the children to seek connection digitally (and be distracted and ignore the parents).

Turkle’s perspective is by no means luddite.  She’s not anti-technology, but does ask us to think about when to turn devices off for the sake of conversation, beginning with ourselves (before we ask it of our youth and children).

She’s arguing strongly for what we’d regard as formational practices, like family dinner with everyone turning off their devices and putting them in a basket and making real, regular commitment to uninterrupted conversation.

Donald Schell founded and developed the urban congregation of St. Gregory’s of Nyssa in San Francisco from an organizing dozen members to a parish with national recognition for its innovative approaches to liturgy and mission and its teaching contribution to the wider church. In 2007, Donald joined All Saints Company as President in order to consult, publish, and lead workshops on the discoveries made at St. Gregory’s. Donald has written My Father, My Daughter: Pilgrims on the Road to Santiago and has contributed chapters to Searching for Sacred Space, to What Would Jesus Sing? and to Music By Heart: Paperless Songs for Evening Worship. You can also read his many articles on Episcopal Café, engaging readers to reflect upon liturgy, formation and mission in the church. 

About the Author

  • Donald Schell

    View all posts
Print PDF

October 24, 2012 By Donald Schell

Filed Under: Youth Ministry Tagged With: Christian formation, communication, family ministry, youth ministry

Primary Sidebar

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS

Subscribe to Building Faith

You’ll get new articles, plus free weekly updates in your inbox.

We respect your privacy. View our privacy policy here.

Search Our Site

New Articles

"Visually Safe Disability Pride Flag" with red, yellow, white, light blue, and green diagonal stripes from upper left to lower right on a dark gray background

New and Recent Resources for Disability Pride Month

July is Disability Pride Month in the U.S. As Lizzie Cox explains in her article "Disability Pride …

Continue Reading about New and Recent Resources for Disability Pride Month

Two hands of a person with dark skin tone shaping bronze-colored clay on a pottery wheel in front of a blurred blue background with brown spots

“Nobody’s Perfect”: A Resource for Talking to Youth about Sin

Content warning: This article mentions sexual assault and racial violence. In November of 2018, …

Continue Reading about “Nobody’s Perfect”: A Resource for Talking to Youth about Sin

Circular dots of various colors aligned in rows and columns on a gold surface

Intergenerational Insights: What Is Intergenerational Ministry?

This article is part of a series on Intergenerational Formation Insights written after a literature …

Continue Reading about Intergenerational Insights: What Is Intergenerational Ministry?

Footer

Keep in Touch

  • Email
  • Facebook

Building Faith

Lifelong Learning, Virginia Theological Seminary
3737 Seminary Rd.
Alexandria, VA 22304

Copyright © 2025 · Building Faith · A Ministry of Virginia Theological Seminary

Design by Blue+Pine Creative, Inc.

Subscribe to Building Faith

Get articles and resources by email

Privacy Policy

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website.
If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.