What our young people need in this day and age!!!

Today I was in criminology class and we started talking about labeling theory. In that discussion it led to us talking about juveniles and how it seems like society is very hard on young offenders. My professor brought up something that stuck with me that I wanted to share: Young people need attention and if you are respectful they want to talk to you. That was so phenominal to me. Let me go further.

Over the last few months God has given me a burning desire for our youth. I am absolutely convinced that many of our youth, if not all of our youth need positive role models and people who they can talk to. Our young people go through a lot and what we as adults should do is not sit around and criticize every bad thing they do but correct them IN LOVE and be a vehicle of encouragement. I believe that while children know what they are doing when they do wrong a lot of the time, there is still a reflection on the parents and society as a whole.

Many of our young people are incredible and are great people yet because of their environment, circumstances, life experiences and upbringing are in a troubling situation. Our young people need mentoring relationships, unique bonds and social friendships that are encouraging and blessful. God has blessed me to have wonderful mentoring relationships with some of our young people and my prayer is that God will use me as someone to be a positive example. If we be positive examples and BUILD TRUST then I believe many will be willing to share some of the things that go on in their lives. But the sad reality (here we go church people) is that the church has a reputation for having a bunch of gossiping folk who want to spread other people's business. As long as this reputation stands, the church will not be a place of trust for our young people.Young people need an outlet to express themselves and what's going on! Many walk years and years with that hurt and pain from the past! Let's help them release!!!

In conclusion I believe that we need to heavily emphasize mentoring in the 21st century, correction done in a spirit of Love and encouragement, and remember that we were young so we should put ourselves in their shoes of when we were young. I praise God for our young people and pray that we would invest more time with them!