The two disciples heard him and went after Jesus. Jesus looked over his shoulder and said to them, “What are you after?”
They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”
He replied, “Come along and see for yourself.”
John 1:35-38, MSG
I remember, as a kid, really wanting to be invited to my friend’s house for his 16th birthday party. I heard they were going to shoot paintball guns, go camping, and I was eager to be invited into the experience. As the days went by, it surprised me to find out that all of my other friends had been invited, and I was excluded. I kept thinking, “eventually, he’ll text me and let me know”. But, the invite never came. I thought to myself, “He must have just forgotten. I know where and when they’re meeting, so I’ll just show up!” Cue the cringe. Rather than waiting for an invitation, I decided to take matters into my own hands and crash the party. It turns out, the lack of invitation wasn’t an accident - they didn’t want me there. It was hurtful, to say the least, but I had to accept the situation. Crashing their party made things awkward; they reluctantly agreed to let me participate, but they didn’t seem thrilled about it.
Invitations are a powerful thing. We feel included, chosen, set apart, valued. Conversely, feeling excluded is often gut-wrenching. It can make us feel unwanted, unloved, unappreciated. When Jesus encounters the disciples, he doesn’t force himself into their lives. He invites them to “come and see” what he is all about. The call to follow Jesus was in their court. He took personal interest in them and pursued them, but his pursuit was built on an invitation.
The Two Approaches
When it comes to building trust in relationships with high school students, there are often two approaches that we take as parents, teachers, and authority figures. We either invite them into a conversation, relationship, or discussion OR we invade their space by forcing ourselves into their personal lives. Granted, there are times when we need to more directly involve ourselves in their lives, teenagers typically resist a forced connection that isn’t built on invitation and welcome. If we want to establish trust with high school students, it doesn’t take a hovering gaze that swoops into every space. It takes a willing welcome and a trusting presence that invites them into a relationship.
Fear, Control, and the Disarming Power of Invitation
In my own life, when I feel distance or lost trust with students, I experience a deep awareness of my fight or flight tendency. I’m tempted to either pull away out of fear of rejection or to double down to impose control. Both instances are deeply rooted in insecurity. Teenagers are wishy-washy, they’re in process, they aren’t fully formed into the image of Jesus (even if we’d like to think they are). This means their decisions will often be reactionary, built on emotional stimuli, and inconsistent. If, as authority figures in their life, we build our identity on how/whether they accept us, respect us, or trust us, we are operating out of a vacancy, not an abundance. Kyle Strobel says, “When we try and grab for our identity from some source outside of Jesus, we actually shrink our identity.” Identity struggles are not just present in our students, they are rampant in us as well. Invasion is easy. It’s measurable. It feels strong. It gives us a sense of control when it comes to relationships. But, more often than not, invasion has the opposite effect we desire. It pushes students away.
If we want to build trust with our students, it begins with the disarming decision of invitation. We are putting the control in God’s hands. Our job is to be faithful and available, not forceful and aggressive. This way of invitation relinquishes our ability to manhandle a conversation. It dissolves our sense of self-righteousness and fear-based leadership. It demonstrates for our students that we are all broken and in need of Jesus. If Jesus, being God in the flesh, was self-secure enough to build his community of followers with an invitation, then we have no reason to believe we are expected to do anything differently.
The Long Way is the Right Way
What is difficult about this way of invitation is that it isn’t immediately gratifying. It requires patience, trust, and long-suffering. It requires embracing the messiness of our students. It requires grace upon grace that allows them the space to be in process. However, once we embrace this long way of faithfulness, we will see that it is in fact the right way, the narrow road. In a society built on instant gratification, it requires diligence to be counter-cultural. It requires courage to be faithful. It requires humility to be potentially unloved, unappreciated, and misunderstood. It requires resisting the tendency to guilt them into loving us or blaming them for not being appreciative. But, when we walk in the way of Jesus, even if we are misunderstood for a season, the faithful presence of our invitation will be imprinted in the minds and hearts of our students. When real suffering comes in their lives, they will remember which doors are open and who is waiting to listen to their story.