1.2 million followers read Emma Gonzalez’s tweet about Betsy DeVos’ visit to her school; “Good thing I was already sleeping in tomorrow.”

269,000 followers read Sarah Chadwick’s tweet about the same visit; “Literally no one asked for this.”

The New York Times made this observation about these two tweets; “And with a few tweets the students had overtaken another adult official’s narrative.”

My first thought upon reading this observation is “it’s about time.” I’ve spent most of my life in the church in some capacity, so I’ve been dealing with dynamic of adult/youth interaction from several different perspectives.

I was duly elected to our church’s board as a high school junior. I was eager to serve. I thought it was great that the church wanted a representative from the youth group to be on the board, to have a voice in the room. I came to the conclusion that they didn’t want my voice heard as much as they wanted to feel good about saying they had a youth representative on the board.

Much of my focus upon entering the ministry was ministry with youth. I was blessed to serve a congregation who took the voice of youth seriously. I was witness to youth going to border communities in Mexico to build homes with generous support from adults. People listened as the youth shared the truth that our neighbors to the south are children of God and not all that different from us.

That’s one story. There are others that aren’t quite as nice. I’ve led enough events which proudly lifted up 1 Timothy 4:12, “let no one look down upon you because of your youth” while then sending them back to church and civic communities who made a habit of discounting the voice of youth because they were young. Churches designate one Sunday a year where the youth could lead worship, because heaven forbid they participate in the other fifty-one Sundays. I once had a church leader tell me, “the only thing you don’t do well as a Senior Minister is that you listen to the youth too much.” Two things stood out- first, if that was the only thing she thought I didn’t do well, then she wasn’t paying close attention. Second, I took her well-meaning statement as one of the great compliments that I could receive. I was doing something right.

For too long, the church has not been faithful in listening to the voice of our youth. Youth have a way of showing us what God would have us do and moving us to action. The country is seeing that in the passion and the actions of the Stoneman Douglas students, who are inspiring us to gather and to have needed conversations around gun and school violence. In the space where adults have failed, our teens are moving us forward. Thanks be to God! It’s long past time for our youth to have voice in shaping our narrative and our life together.