Learning Curve

Hello, I'm Dick Foth and I'd like to welcome you to known stories to make sense of it all. These stories are what I call walking books, real-life people, different places, different ages, different cultures, and I want to have some conversations with them across disciplines and generations and cultures in order to encourage a kind of knowing fresh lenses through which to see the world. One of those lenses will be Scripture, or more specifically, Jesus of Nazareth, whose life I believe changed the course of the history of the world. So thanks for listening in. Great to have you with us. So we're sitting on 8th Street, southeast in Washington, DC. Just a couple of hundred yards from 8th and 9th Marine Corps Barracks, which is famous in the military world. And I'm sitting with my friends, Justin and Mackenzie Matthew. Hi guys. Hi, Dick. And we've been back here for a couple of days and just roaming around doing things, stirring up trouble, trying to run the nation and all of that. But you guys are an iconic couple in my circles because you work with young people. And Justin, you work with middle schoolers. And high school is sort of overlap. And Mackenzie, you started with high school now, your college and young adults. So we have a range from how 11 years old, 12 years old, 11 to 30ish right here. So we're going to take a few minutes and just talk about that. I'm going to start with you, Justin, first of all, where did you guys meet just real quickly? Yeah, we met at a young life camp in northern California about how long ago? In 2007. Okay. Did you like him right away? That's a really we started dating six months later. Yeah, so we dated long distance. You were in Tennessee? University Tennessee in Mackenzie's at Colorado State University. So you did that for how long? Three years, three years. I know which is like people think it's crazy. Well, we survived that. So but you but you didn't hear you. Aren't you been married now? How long? Five years in August. And you're throwing your life. You get up every morning to go and give your life away to young people or invest your life in young people. So I have grandchildren, Ruth and I have grandchildren who are middle schoolers. Talk to us about that age group that for a number of us and maybe a number listening, scares the bjeevers out of us. Okay. So talk to us about your thoughts about that. Yeah, I love middle school students. I remember when I first got hired at the church. I didn't know really what I was getting myself into. But middle school kids, I always say that they get kind of a bad rap. They they most people are kind of too scared of them or afraid that they're going to just go crazy and they can't ever control them. But I always say the biggest thing about middle school students is just showing up being available in their life, letting them know that you do care and you're not leaving in four months. Like most adults in their life, they're kind of coming and going and yeah, just trying to be consistent going to where they are playing by their rules and their turf. So you and you coach basket of all at local middle school. I do. You're there. Yeah. Go to the restaurants where they're going to hang out. Yeah, I go to wrestling matches. I go to football practice. I go to track meets and track meets with the easiest because kids are just standing around always and there there's really nothing for them to do other if it's not time for their meet. And so yeah, I hang out with them and I know that the students walk down to a little restaurant right before wrestling matches or track practices. And so I know that if I'm at that restaurant while they're there, then they have no choice but to hang out with me. Okay, so so they're 11. Let's say when you start with them and then the giant puberty hits and they go to high school and Mackenzie talked us about high school. Well, you can both jump in and talk about high schoolers. I always say with with middle school kids when you're just when you pay attention, they want they just want you there just in with you. With a high school student, you have to earn it with them a little bit more. They're a little bit like, I don't know. I don't know if you're cool enough. I don't know if I want you. I don't know if I want to hear from you. So it's I think there's similar principles when when you show up when you when you stick around long enough, but you kind of have to have a little bit of thicker skin to be like, you know, kids always had I had countless kids ditch me not want to hang out with me. High schoolers. Oh yeah, high schoolers, but there's something about pursuing anyone. Maybe that's any relationship any age when you show up when you're invested when you care that that pays off. So what I heard you and I heard you say is we had previous conversations that if you lock in with a middle school there you're sort of friends for life. Is that correct? Yeah, I really believe that if you if you grow close with a middle school kid early, they're your friends forever. I don't know who says this. It's not me, but they say that middle school kids or all they want is for you to think they're cool. That's it. And then whenever whenever you meet a high school kid for the first time, they're wondering if you are cool. Uh huh. And so I always say that if you smile and laugh a whole bunch and and be a friend, I really believe that middle school kids are your friends forever. And you have to be a little crazy. Don't you? I mean, you have to do the crazy stuff. Don't you? Yeah, he does. I'm not suggesting you're crazy. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, maybe. Definitely. So, you know, I have a I have a friend she's now in her 50s or and but years ago, uh, I said, how are you doing? I'll call her Joan. I said Joan, how are you doing? And she said, I have a 14 year old son and I have stupid written on my forehead. Uh, that's the high school. That's the high school deal. We have parents who hopefully are listening to this podcast. What can we as parents or as grandparents in my case, because we've got grandchildren who are middle school and high school. What can we do to help nurture our our kids and grandkids in a culture that has a thousand voices? What can we do to work hand and glove with folks like you who are youth workers? What can we do? You know, I I always say that I get parents that come up to me all the time and they'll say uh, just it in your small group. If my son says anything about anything, I want you to come and tell me. Okay. And and I always say, okay, maybe. Um, and then I kind of explained to them that I I think that there's some things that they want to share with somebody other than their parents and and we have kind of the helicopter parents, the like, I want to sit in on their small groups. I want to stare through the blinds while you guys are having small groups and then you have and then you have the other side where you have parents that are just like, I don't care what's going on. As long as they're there, I get a night where I don't have my kid. And so they just kind of want to be just whatever. And I think of students who who I really believe that whether they say it or not, they want to have a deep relationship with their parents. Um, and I think some parents try to force that and I think other parents could care less about that. One of my big thoughts when it comes to parents really of lots of different ages is the idea of just listening and asking and being curious. I think there's a lot of parents that want to tell their kids a lot of things or like, oh, you got to, I got to tell you, listen to this or like kind of be firm. But I think there's a lot of things we're trying to invest principles in their lives. Totally. And I, yeah, and I think the heart is good. But I think that that can miss sometimes and being able to be curious to ask, what do you think about that? Would you see here? Do you ever, how does this make you feel asking questions and trying to listen or give them the stage to be heard? I think it goes a really long way. You know, sometimes I, um, my son and law and I just took their 13 year old because we do this thing of taking our 13 year old grandkids on trips. He wanted to go to Hawaii. And so we ended up going there and he was playing a video game, a particular video game, and which is standard procedure in that standard operating procedure always. But, but things dynamically changed when I said to him, tell me about that game. And could you teach me? Yeah. Teach me about that, that game. And it, and it allowed for, again, my interest in his world, whether I liked his world or not, or, you know, because a lot of times, you know, the video games, you wanted to talk to me and all that. We had some friends for years. Well, still have them. But they, they had six children. And they would do marriage stuff. And they had this sort of model of how you bring up a child. And they said, birth to seven, you have rules. You know, Johnny, don't go in the street cars about for your health from eight to 13. It was example. The kids are watching you like hawks to see how you're doing, you know, how you do this because if it's incongruent, if you're not doing what you talk about and so forth. And from 14 and up, you negotiate as, as a parent. So you're dealing with on the one hand, young people who want example, who are looking at you for that. And, and you're also dealing dealing with negotiators. I had some youth workers say to me, youth work would be tremendous if it weren't for the parents. And, and that's not, or, or, excuse me, not youth workers. It was a high school teacher who said, you being a high school teacher would be great if it weren't for the parents. This is in the last year and a half. As a parent, you know, I take offense, I say, what are you talking about? But what would be, what would be an an ideal for you as people who are trying to help other people's children understand life, understand eternal life, understand who Jesus is and so forth? What might be a couple of things that you would say? And then we're going to just wrap this up. Yeah, I, I love when parents come to me and ask how they can help. I love that. I, I love when parents say that, hey, I just want to make sure that I'm, I'm invested. And I, I want to know how I can help and how I can help you and support you. And, um, I, I just really think that a lot of times parents, um, they kind of use, I would say youth workers and as almost kind of like an in, they, they think that, um, I'm working on their team. I'm, I'm on the parent's team and they think it's like me and the parent versus the kid. And then I always say that I, I'm working on your team. Like you have unbelievably amount more time with a student than I do. And so I, I want to say that I want to be on your team as we try to serve your child best. And, and I, I, I really, really appreciate when parents, um, um, when first off, they trust me and they tell me they trust me and they, and they want their students to hang out with me. There's nothing more, more frustrating for me whenever I'm trying to do my best to pursue a student and their parents are just like, no, he, he can't really do that tonight. And it, it, it's really, really tough. And I, I look at it as, um, opportunities missed a lot of times. And, and then I also have students where they can be grounded from everything except for me. And, and, which is also, uh, pretty crazy too. And so, and I, I mean, I get parents, or I get students that will text me and be like, hey, I can't come tonight because I'm grounded. And I'm like from church. You're, you're grounded from church and so grounded from Jesus. Yeah, from Jesus. Yeah. And one month Jesus is back. And so, but, but I get it. I was a parent of the, you know, oh, yeah, I understand. I, I wish I had, I had somebody like you and I was 13. Yeah. And we could shoot. Actually, I had one guy who actually came and picked me up from junior high school. But when we called it junior high school in the ninth grade, every Friday and we'd go shoot hoops. And his impact on me was much larger than anything else I remember from junior high. And that, amazing. We can't see who have any last thoughts at this moment. Yeah, no, I think that's all, yeah, that's really good. I think parents are, are all parents are really just doing the best they can. Boy, you know, and I think, and I think that that's, I see that a ton. And I think it's okay in, in to have space to say, hey, we're just doing the best they can. Yeah, you know, and having to necessarily have it all figured out a message and to control everything. Well, because most of us never did it before. You know, we didn't do it. I'd like to come back in a bit, not right now. We're going to wrap this piece up, but I want to talk about social media. Maybe we can do this in two segments and come back and do a social media segment. I just, if I could, if I could add anything to the Bible, this is going to sound terrible. I would like to have a Bible with inflection, so that when Jesus says, you know, don't give any thought for tomorrow, because tomorrow's got enough junk for it. That's a folk prayer for you know, just stuff like, but the other piece, if we could only have read Jesus in his teen years, because we have him to 12, and then it jumps to like 30, you know, so we have that, and I don't think that's sacrilegious. I just think that's that's a piece that we need to be, we need to engage young people in following this Jesus, but we don't have that piece of the model, but we do have his model of going and being with people where they were, walking with them through their stuff. We do have that all the way through, and that's what you do. So thank you for investing in our kids and grandkids. Love you, and we'll circle back and do another piece of this in a bit. Thanks. Thanks, take a good rest. We'll continue the conversation with Justin and Mackenzie Matthews a bit later, and by a bit later I mean in another podcast down the road, because it's important, I think for us to have better handles on youth culture today, especially the whole arena of social media, which impacts all of us, but particularly it impacts young people. So we'll circle back to them down the road a bit, thanks for being with us today.