Blog | Tips for Encouraging Students to Take Ownership of Their Time With God

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As a youth pastor, one of your greatest desires is to see your students taking ownership of their relationship with God. At youth group or bible study or on retreats, it’s easy for students to feel close to God. But what about when they go home, or they’re at school, or hanging out with their friends?

Pursuing Jesus on your own time, in your own life, can sometimes feel paralyzing. Much of the spiritual shame and guilt I felt as a teenager came from feeling like I wasn’t “doing” Christianity right. For the life of me, I couldn’t wake up an hour before school to study scripture. Now that I’m older, I realize a lot of that shame came from a small imagination and small example of what it looked like to pursue Jesus in every part of my life. I was taught about morning devotions, prayer meetings, and spending time with Chistian friends, but that was about it. I didn’t realize that spending time with Christ could look so many different ways for different people, and even look different in my own life depending on the season.

Here are a few ways to invite your students to find spiritual rhythms that work for them, no “checklists” involved:

Love the Lord With All Your Strength

Our western culture prioritizes intellect and mind. That’s awesome. Our brains, our thoughts are important, and education is powerful. But, because of this hyper-focus on the mind, we can sometimes emphasize reading and studying scripture as the only way to connect to God. In Luke 10:27, Jesus tells us to “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind”— yes, with your mind, but not just your mind.

But how do we love God with our strength? More often than not, Christians (especially young, adolescent Christians) are taught to fear and demonize their bodies. We’re unfortunately taught that our bodies will lead us into temptation or serve as obstacles between our spirits and transcendence. We woefully underemphasize how Christ became flesh to teach us how to be embodied and whole here on earth. Our bodies aren’t evil, they are important. They are the medium through which we encounter everything in this life, including God.

How can we engage our bodies as we pursue Christ? Try inviting your students to practice different physical postures during musical worship. Postures such as kneeling, bowing, laying down, raising our hands, or dancing for joy are powerful ways to embody our emotions and invite God into our spiritual journeys. Dancing, exercising, and singing are other beautiful, embodied ways to connect with the Divine. Movement on its own can also help clear the mind of our own harried thoughts so we can receive from God. Teach your students how to love God with their strength in addition to teaching them how to read scripture.

Return to God With Meditation and Mindfulness

What we focus on, is what grows. In Phillipians 4:8 it says, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable— if anything is excellent or praiseworthy— think about such things.” Mindfulness is a wonderful discipline to teach our brains and hearts to focus on whatever is good, true, and beautiful.

The core principle of meditation is to focus on your breathing. Then, when your mind inevitably wanders, notice the thought, then return back to your breath. Notice, and return. Notice, and return. Is that not the message of Christ? We are always forgetting and remembering. I used to chastise myself for “forgetting,” when really that’s just how humans are. That’s why we have ebenezers, rituals and liturgies, and scriptures that remind us who we are, who God is, and how we can live in freedom and love. That’s why the parable of the prodigal son, the lost coin, and the lost sheep resonate so strongly. We wander, then we are brought back. When we practice mindfulness, we are practicing the acceptance of grace. We are practicing returning to our breath, to YHWH, without judgement or shame.

Especially when you don’t know what to say in prayer, meditation is a worshipful way to tune into the Holy Spirit without us having to do or say anything. For us to just be with Christ. If students express frustration with not knowing what to say when they pray or express shame about not “doing enough for God”, teach them simple mindfulness. There’s no pressure to have the right words or do anything at all— all you have to do is be.

Ask Around and Explore

Ask your friends, your youth leaders, and even your students about the spiritual practices that ground them. You might be surprised by their answers. Someone I know prays over their calendar every morning and asks God to show them the most important thing in their schedule for that day. Someone else I know will make their morning tea with prayerful, loving intention as a way to quiet their mind and enter God’s presence before they begin their day.

Hearing how other people invite God into their lives is a powerful way to find new ideas for yourself and to remind yourself how individual faith practices can be. We are so unique and God meets us in equally unique ways if we have the courage and imagination to receive.

If the way that you used to encounter God seems like going through the motions or running into a brick wall, don’t be afraid to let it go. Ask God what’s next. Try something totally new. Maybe instead of trying out yet another devotional study, stretching while meditating on a bible verse is where God will meet you. Maybe a long walk in nature will teach you more than a podcast sermon. Then again, maybe not. It’s all individual. It’s all yours.

Share with your students, whether from the pulpit or over coffee, about how you are experiencing God’s presence right now. Ask them how they are experiencing God right now. If they don’t know, encourage them to experiment, give them examples, but try to avoid prescribing exactly what you think they should do.

When you give students permission to explore and find a pathway to intimacy with God for themselves, it allows them to take ownership over their spiritual experience. And, chances are, it will be more sustainable for them in the long run. After all, the goal isn’t to create clones who will do exactly what we tell them, but to raise us the next generation to be able to hear and access the Holy Spirit for themselves.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed or want to explore more, check out these resources on spiritual disciplines and rhythms. They are great for your personal use, to share with your students, or to even inspire a sermon series on encountering God:

• Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster
• The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard
• The Lost Are of Disciple Making by LeRoy Eims
• Spiritual Multiplication in the Real World by Bob McNabb