Don’t Wait to Celebrate

“Are you sure you are talking about my son? I can’t even get him to take out the trash and close the garage door.” I was at an open house, in a conversation with a dad of one of my recently graduated seniors. I had been describing how his son was instrumental as a student leader that year, planning key events and leading significant ministry. I thanked the dad for setting the example of servant leadership and hard work, which his son surely saw in his home, in order to replicate such admirable qualities and bless our church community.

This was one of my first instances seeing students outshine or outperform in leadership capacity and spiritual maturity, without one or both parents’ knowledge. This student’s leadership at church and in our youth group wasn’t on his dad’s “score card,” so he missed it. Perhaps the student needed to improve his chores around the house, but this was inconsistent with the “chores” I saw him routinely take on at the church, such as helping me tear down after events.

While there may always be mystery around what teens do at home versus at school and church, it is worth exploring ways to close the gap of leadership inconsistency, particularly when celebration is in order.

We have frequent parent-teacher conferences with our students throughout their educational journey, but unfortunately the church’s parent-teacher dialogue is less robust. What if we issued similar “report cards” around spiritual leadership and maturity for parental discussion in a student’s journey? 

Perhaps we feel the pressure as parents more on the academic side to identify gaps early and address deficiencies with tutors and focused study. We don’t want our daughter to fall behind or our son to miss that special opportunity. But what if we were just as eager to take the temperature of our teen’s spiritual development with more routine “check-ups” with their spiritual teachers and pastors?

My primary motivation behind this thinking is that I fear we are delaying celebration to “culminating moments,” like graduations, when parents (and kids) need encouragement earlier and more often. One corrective is to curb “Eeyore parenting” that only notices our kids’ deficiencies, and instead celebrate the small wins that we see.

I’m not advocating for flattery or false praise, that is actually grasping for parental approval or manipulating students in some way. This is the kind of faux praise Paul talks about in 1 Thessalonians 2:5, “For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness.” It is linked with greed, where we praise because we want something, not because we selflessly delight in someone and want to double our joy by sharing it with others.

Pastor John Piper explains this in an article, How Do I Praise Others but Avoid Flattery?

The key mark of genuine, non-flattering praise is that it’s the overflow of authentic delight in what we are observing about the other person. It is the opposite of calculation. It is spontaneous. C.S. Lewis, in one of my favorite quotes, says, “We delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not only expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation” (Reflections on the Psalms, 111). Yes, exactly right.

What we are on the lookout for is any evidences of God’s grace at work in our students. The Apostle Paul opens his letter to the Corinthians giving thanks for the grace of God that he saw in the Corinthians’ lives, as evidenced in their language and knowledge of Jesus. He writes, “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in Him in all speech and all knowledge.” (1 Corinthians 1:4-5)

In addition, parents need to hear that whatever efforts pastors and church leaders invest in their kids’ spiritual formation, it pales in comparison to their own simple, faithful example as parents. As Christian Smith and Amy Adamczyk, in their book, Handing Down the Faith, explain:

Some readers might be surprised to know that the single, most powerful causal influence on the religious lives of American teenagers and young adults is the religious lives of their parents. Not their peers, not the media, not their youth group leaders or clergy, not their religious school teachers. Myriad studies show that, beyond a doubt, the parents of American youth play the leading role in shaping the character of their religious and spiritual lives, even well after they leave the home. 

What parents tend to forget is that their students are constantly watching and absorbing their patterns of life, leadership, and love for Jesus. Through everyday acts of faithfulness, a weekly commitment to gather with God’s people at church, and a humble trust in God, parents offer their young adults a more indelible spiritual imprint than any pastor or spiritual leader could give. And yet, those spiritual leaders may have a vantage point to see and name what these students are becoming in ways parents may miss, or students may hide.

So, as we enter this graduation season, fill cards with cash and compliments for our graduates, and also consider how you may encourage parents with your observations of their student. Have you seen any evidences of God’s grace in students unique to your vantage point, that may have been hidden from their parents? And even better, extend these celebrations to students not-yet-wearing a cap and gown too. God may use your timely encouragement to lift a weary parent’s arms or ensure a teen reaches graduation with confidence and hope.